Occult Classic
by xoverfiend
Summary: Meteor Mutants are par for Clark Kent's course. Vampires, demons, magic, and unspeakable ancient evil? Not so much. If only there were some gang of intrepid monster fighting mystery solvers to help him. Oh wait...
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** I do not own _Buffy the Vampire Slayer,_ _Smallville_ or any other intellectual properties appearing in or being referenced in this story.

 **Author's Note:** , HAPPY 20TH ANNIVERSARY TO BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER!Today, March 10th (is it March 10 where you are? It's March 10 where I am), 20 years ago, 1997, the first episode of the Buffy tv show aired. This show has meant so much to me growing up, I can't even begin to put it all into words.

So, despite saying I'd take a break, in honor of the Buffy 20th, here's one more little story.

* * *

" _This was something different, something else. I don't think this was a meteor mutant...I think this was a real vampire." - Clark Kent_

* * *

"Clark, I need your help."

Clark looked up from his round coffee table. "Everything okay, Lana?"

Lana Lang clutched her metallic serving tray to her chest with one hand. Her eyes darted to one side, then back. She sat opposite him and leaned in.

"There's this guy over there. Corner table. Blonde guy with glasses, English…"

Clark glanced over and saw.

Lana bit her bottom lip. "I don't...there's something about the way that guy...he's been staring at me all night. It's giving me the creeps."

Clark's eyes grew steely. "What do you need me to do?"

"Can you stick around till close?"

Clark nodded.

Lana sighed in relief and graced him with her lovely smile. "Thanks, you're a lifesaver."

 _Hopefully not literally this time,_ Clark thought, but he gave Lana a smile and a nod to reassure her.

She touched her hand to his forearm, and for about three seconds he forgot the creepy guy in the corner as he watched her walk away.

Then he crammed that soaring feeling down into the little lead box where he kept all the things that could hurt him.

Clark turned a little in his seat, hands on his mug of hot chocolate, fiddling with it to appear nonchalant. From this position, he could keep Creepy Guy in his peripheral.

It wasn't just Lana, this guy watched everyone in the Talon like a cat watched trapped mice. He had this lazy smirk, like he was the only one in on some cosmic joke.

The hairs on the back of Clark's neck stood, and he felt his heart rate start to tick up. Anticipation, but anticipation of what?

Something about this guy was brushing up against Clark's alarm bells, but he couldn't quite put his finger on why. Sure, there was the look, that ravenous look like a starved man placed before a buffet table. Creepy Guy directed it to everyone, but it grew deeper when he directed it at young women, and deeper still when he directed it at Lana.

Clark clenched his teeth. He thought about going over and telling the guy off. But for what? For sitting in a corner? For being vaguely creepy? For looking at people? Besides, there was more. Something besides they way he was watching everyone had Clark worried, but he wasn't sure what.

Clark heard a loud crack coming from right below him. He jumped in his chair. Several patrons near him looked over. Clark looked down.

 _Crap._

He'd gotten so tense, he'd shattered the handle of the blue ceramic mug.

"Oh my god, Clark."

Clark wiped ceramic dust and pieces off his hand as Lana strode over to him.

She grabbed his hand before he could protest, carefully examining it. She quirked an eyebrow. "Wow, you're fine."

Clark's heart was racing for another reason now. "Well, it's all the farm work. Makes for tough hands."

"So you say. But you don't have a callous on you." Lana's fingers drifted over the skin of his palm, leaving pins and needles in their wake.

Clark drew his hand back. "Maybe I just lucked out. How much for the mug?"

Lana smirked and shook her head. "Come on Clark, that's not on you. Clearly the mug was defective. I'll handle it."

Lana reached down to take the mug. Clark placed a hand over it.

He looked her in the eye. "I insist."

Lana's smirk withered. "Clark, no. Come on. It's fine."

"I broke it, I should pay for it."

"Well, Clark, I own the damn place so if I'm saying you're not paying for it, guess what you're not doing. Quit being so stubborn!"

"Lana-" Clark stopped himself. People were staring now. He took his hand off the mug. "Sorry."

Lana took the mug and stood up stiffly. She started to walk away, then she turned. "Refill?"

"Yes please." As Lana walked back to the counter, throwing the broken mug away as she did, Clark glanced over at Creepy Guy. He was staring at Lana with a shark's grin.

Clark felt his blood start to rush. He took his hands off the table and laced them together in his lap, closing his eyes and taking long breaths to calm himself.

He wondered if there would ever come a time when he no longer needed to fear losing control every second of every day. Probably not.

Lana came back and swept up the broken fragments. Clark thought about insisting he do it himself, but decided he'd pissed her off enough for one night. The worst part was that she thought he was being totally unreasonable. He couldn't tell her that he had, in fact, shattered the mug with his superhuman strength and that it was totally his fault.

So he swallowed his guilt and her vindictive silence. There were many things he adored in Lana Lang, but even he would be the first to admit the girl could hold a petty grudge like no one.

Clark gave her space and kept one eye on Creepy Guy as the night wore on. Customers came and went all the way up till close. There wasn't a whole lot to do in Smallville. Especially for young people, especially after dark, and especially legally, so the Talon was busy more or less all night long.

Lana eventually started booting everyone but him out the door. The last to leave was Creepy Guy. Lana asked him in her now well practiced 'Customer Service Voice' to please leave when he finished because they were closing.

The man smirked his long lazy smirk, it reminded Clark now of the indulgent smile adults sometimes wear when they are humoring the nonsensical rambling of small children, and he strolled out the door.

Lana closed the door behind him and locked it. She turned around to face Clark, leaned back against the door and sighed.

She seemed to be forgiving him, so Clark smiled. "No rest for the weary."

"Service with a smile," Lana said giving him an exaggerated plastic grin. Through grit teeth she said, "all day every day."

Clark shook his head. "I don't know how you manage it. Need any help?"

Lana shook her own head. "Lex gets mad about that kind of thing. Something about payroll something or...to be honest, I was only half paying attention, but apparently it's illegal or something."

"Ah, that's just Lex's big city style. You know that out here in Applepie, USA we do things differently."

Lana snorted. "Well, alright...but only because I _really_ don't want to do this all by myself."

Clark got up from his seat when he heard something. He closed his eyes and focused, blocking out his other senses. With the closing of his eyes sight fell away, smells fell away, his whole sense of self, of the movement around him fell away.

His hearing stretched well beyond the range of humans, reaching out through the building and beyond into the night air. Footfalls from around the back. He heard a long drag of breath and the crackle of burning paper. Someone was smoking and pacing by the front of the alley behind the Talon.

Clark opened his eyes, let his mind focus on his other senses. The soft and distant noises fell away as he stopped concentrating on them and he collapsed back into himself. Clark turned so he was facing the direction of the alley and focused again, this time on his sight. He felt a buzzing in his eyes and the world dissolved into the strange vibrant neon colors of what Clark was pleased to call his "X-Ray Vision" despite being almost certain that it had absolutely nothing to do with X-Rays.

He pushed his vision through the walls of the Talon, past brick and mortar, past piping, wiring, and a rat's den- he should find a way to clue Lana off to this later- and out into the alley. There was Creepy Guy, cigarette in hand, eyes on the back door.

Clark grit his teeth as the world receded back to the inside of the Talon, and then returned to regular color.

"Let's get this done," he said, "and I'll walk you to your car."

Lana gave him a warm smile. "Thanks. And sorry, it's just...that guy earlier really spooked me. Have you ever seen him before?"

"No," Clark said as they started cleaning and stacking chairs on tables. They finished quickly, admittedly cutting a few corners.

"Let Jessie take care of it in the morning," Lana said.

Clark smirked. "Good to be the boss, huh?"

She stuck her tongue out at him. They nearly got into another fight when Lana tried to get Clark to accept payment. Clark compromised by asking to take home some of the unsold bagels that were just going to be thrown out anyway.

Together they stepped into the back alley.

Clark's eyes scanned up and down. Creepy Guy was nowhere to be seen. After she locked up, Clark walked Lana to her car door.

"This is me," she said.

"Oh no, you've been turned into a car?"

Lana snorted. "Clark, you're not funny."

Clark gaped, aghast. "Are you telling me that the 'Clark Kent One Man Stand Up Show' isn't ready to take America by storm?"

Lana popped her door open and moved toward the driver seat. She leaned on the door which lay between them like a fence. "Don't quit your day job."

Clark sighed and shook his head. "Los Angeles, Conan O'Brian...wait for me."

Lana snickered. She reached out and touched his arm again. "Thanks again, Clark."

Clark met her eyes. The joking light was gone out of them. She was hopeful now, waiting, her breath held still.

Clark felt a force on his body, trying to push him forward, trying to bend him down, closer. But there was more than just a car door standing between them.

"Goodnight, Lana."

The hopeful stillness ebbed away. She said nothing, only nodded. She jerked her hand off his arm and got into the car. She slammed the door and the engine roared to life.

Clark stepped back and watched her drive off into the night.

Clark leaned back against cold red brick. He closed his eyes and for a while thought only of breathing. He opened his eyes again and looked up at the stars.

"Of all the towns in all the worlds, you had to drop me in hers."

"Aww, lover's quarrel?"

Clark glanced down the alley as Creepy Guy stepped into view, no cigarette this time.

 _There you are,_ Clark thought, a little guilty that he'd almost forgotten about the man. Clark pushed himself off the wall and turned to face Creepy Guy. Creepy Guy had hands in the pockets of his blue jeans, strolling down the alley toward Clark.

This alley didn't have any working lights. Something Clark had complained to Lex about more than once. But that didn't bother Clark. Even just the light of the stars and the moon were enough for his inhuman eyes to see clear as midday.

The darkness, Clark realised, also didn't bother Creepy Guy. He walked down what should have been to him a pitch black alley without breaking stride, his approach would have been nearly silent to a human.

"Don't worry about it too much, kid-"

Clark thought Lana was wrong, the man's accent was Australian, not English.

"-these things that seem like the end of the world when you're in highschool usually wind up not being that important. Well, not that you'll ever learn that first hand." Creepy Guy stopped within arms reach.

Clark felt his fists curl into tight balls. He focused on getting them to loosen up. This guy might be a cretin, but if Clark lost control of himself the man would end up crippled or even dead.

"You're a big one," Creepy Guy said. He started fishing in his pocket for something.

Clark glanced at the man's pocket. The colors of the world shifted again and he was looking into the man's pocket at his fingers closing around a fancy looking metal lighter.

"To be honest," Creepy Guy continued, pulling the lighter out, "I had my heart set on the little dish behind the counter. Lana, I think you called her. I was gonna drink her up like an ice pop. She had this air about her...I was betting she tastes like cherry-lime. Good on you to walk her to her car. You botched that plan well an' good. Haven't ya heard? They say chivalry is dead. Still, guess it means you're on the menu, ey? You're probably a bit tougher than what I was hoping for, probably a bit saltier too… but hey, desert should go last anyway right?"

The protracted food metaphor was making Clark's skin crawl. Something about the way the man said it almost made it seem like he was being literal. Clark could smell Camel cigarettes every time the man opened his mouth. Clark's nose twitched. He couldn't shake the sense the cigarettes were covering another smell coming from the man's mouth. Clark couldn't put his finger on it, not without more focus.

"Just to be clear," Clark said, "so that I know what to tell the police, you are threatening myself and Miss Lana Lang with some unspecified form of bodily harm?"

Creepy Guy's shark smile was back again. "Well, I guess I am at that."

Creepy Guy held up the lighter and flicked it on. A small orange glow illuminated them both.

"Oh this?" Creepy Guy said in response to a question that hadn't been asked.

Clark didn't think it was possible, but Creepy Guy's smile grew even wider. "All the better to see me with."

And then it happened. Clark's world changed forever.

The man's face distorted, skin stretching grotesquely, bones shifting and grinding as the whole thing transformed. It only took a second, but to Clark it was almost forever. His superhuman perception let him capture every step of the change in terrifying detail.

Clark stood, stunned. Creepy Guy lashed out with the hand not holding the lighter. Clark had seen boxing on tv before. Some of the top tier pros could throw punches that reached up to 35 miles per hour. They trained night and day to reach that pinnacle of human striking power.

The punch racing towards Clark's face was probably twice that fast, easy. Despite the delay caused by shock, Clark brought his arm up in time to block the jab. An impact like that, with the punch traveling that fast and the block coming up faster, would have shattered the arm of a normal human.

Obviously, Creepy Guy was not a normal human.

Clark had brought his arm up so fast the paper bag with his bagels ripped and dropped to the floor. Creepy Guy stared at his blocked strike in shock as a baker's dozen everything bagels bounced around his feet. Then the hand holding the lighter dropped it. The flickering flame began to descend as Creepy Guy lashed out with the other arm, thrusting his hand at Clark's throat. He kept his fingers straight and together like the blade of a spear.

Clark caught sight of the man's long fingernails, filed to points. Clark blocked that strike too, but the angle made the nails slice through his sleeve and scrape at his skin. They couldn't penetrate, but Clark could tell from the way they felt that they were sharp as steel knives.

Creepy Guy snarled in a way no human should be able to and struck again several times, even faster. Clark blocked the flurry of blows best he could, strips of his coat being shed as collateral.

The lighter hit the floor and Clark leapt back to put some distance between them. Creepy Guy didn't wait. His eyes, now a pale yellow after his transformation were shining with fury. He leapt after Clark, fingers bent like talons, mouth open wide and letting Clark see two pairs of large pointed fangs.

 _It can't be,_ Clark thought as Creepy Guy was sailing toward him. Clark pushed. His open palm landed squarely on Creepy Guy's chest. Some old, subconscious terror had grabbed hold of Clark in that moment. His fear powered his strike. More power than he'd bargained for.

He felt the man's ribs and sternum crack under his hands, heard the snapping of bone and a violent expulsion of air. Probably one of the man's lungs collapsing from the pressure.

The man was sent flying back across the alley. His back hit the wall first and Clark heard a crack. Then the back of the man's head hit the wall and rebounded and Clark heard a crunch. The man dropped to the floor and lay there, limp.

 _Oh no._ A bolt of terror shot through Clark. He rushed over, dropped to his knees.

 _Please, no!_

He felt for the man's pulse. Nothing. Clark held his fingers there in disbelieving hope. No heartbeat.

The man was dead. Clark felt daggers of cold stab into his chest. He took shaking fingers off the man's neck as the world spun around him.

 _No._

Clark toppled backwards and landed on his rear. His eyes were on the man's body, but Clark wasn't seeing anything. His mind was somewhere far away, somewhere that felt like nowhere at all.

"Gah."

Clark's eyes sprang back into focus at the sound of a gasp. He looked down. Creepy Guy groaned and turned over slightly.

"What the hell?" Clark said. He must have gotten it wrong. He reached over and checked the man's pulse again. Nothing.

"What the hell, what the hell, what the hell, what the hell?" Clark repeated the mantra. He noticed some further things, the man's skin was cold. Colder than a human body could ever get, and his face had returned to normal. Clark was staring in disbelief when he was suddenly flooded with light from behind him.

Clark turned and stared into the flashlight beam being held by a tall man in his mid fifties.

"Deputy Waeland?"

"Clark?" Deputy Waeland's light lingered on Clark before sweeping over to Creepy Guy. The old deputy was like a worn vintage car that still ran strong as ever contrary to the second law of thermodynamics. He rushed over. Clark jumped out of the way. Deputy Waeland bent over the man and felt for a pulse.

Clark saw his face turn sheet white and knew the Deputy had made the same discovery he did. The Deputy turned to look at Clark. He opened his mouth to say something.

Clark's heart was racing. What to do?

Creepy Guy groaned again and twitched.

Deputy Waeland jumped back, dropping his flashlight to the asphalt with a clatter and a yelp of "Jesus!"

The Deputy stared at Creepy Guy, one hand over his heart. When the man moaned and shifted again, Deputy Waeland bent over and scooped up his flashlight. He backed away from Creepy Guy.

"What happened here?"

Old instinct cut though Clark's terror. "I don't know."

The beam of light was in Clark's face again. Deputy Waeland gave him an even look. "You don't know? Clark, this guy looks like he's been hit by a truck. And that truck's cousins all came along to join the beat down. You telling me you just found him here like this?"

"Yeah."

Deputy Waeland stared at him a while longer. "Alright. Listen to me, Clark. I'm going to go back to my car and call an ambulance. Go home."

Clark stared at Deputy Waeland and blinked. "Really?"

The Deputy nodded. "Really...though, tell your father he owes me a fishing trip."

Clark nodded. "I will. Thank you…"

Clark looked back down at Creepy Guy. Colors shifted and he was looking into him, at his skeleton. The ribs were a mess, the sternum cracked in half, part of the coxal bone was cracked and the back of the man's skull had been caved in.

Which was terrible.

But the terrifying part was the blood that barely circulated through the body despite the fact that the man's heart was clearly not beating.

"Clark?"

The world snapped back to normal and Clark turned to face Deputy Waeland.

"You okay?"

Clark blinked. "Deputy...listen, be careful with this guy. I think he's dangerous."

The Deputy frowned and glanced over at Creepy Guy's collapsed form. He looked back at Clark. "And what makes you say that?"

Clark felt his thumbs twitch. The same old instinct to deceive kept him on track. "Just an instinct."

"Instinct, huh?" Deputy Waeland gave the man on the floor a thoughtful look. "Alright, I'll be careful. Now hurry up and git before someone else comes by."

Clark nodded, thanked him again, and left the scene. He heard Deputy Waeland call the ambulance on his radio. Once Clark found an out of the way spot where he was sure he wouldn't be seen, he broke into a sprint.

He shot over the Lowell county countryside in a blur that would have left any cars in the dust. He ran through the usual routes straight for home. He stopped in the driveway, staring at his idyllic little house. Clark slowly spun, looking out over the Kent farm.

Everything was the same. The house, the fields, his mother's garden, the barn. But everything felt different. Clark leaned on one of the fence posts that flanked the dirt driveway leading to his home.

 _What was that?_ he thought.

The man had to have been a meteorite infected, right?

 _A meteor mutation with those specific symptoms in that exact combination?_

Clark felt a frigid finger move up his spine. _But it can't be...it couldn't possibly be an actual vampire. Right?_

Just like there couldn't possibly be an alien wandering around a small town in Kansas, right?

 _I mean, if there were monsters in the world, someone would know by now, right?_

Just like if the world was full of people with unnatural abilities caused by rocks from space people would know, right?

 _That's different. That's...I mean, magic can't be real. Magic is...it's storybook stuff._

Is what people would say if asked if there were aliens on earth. Yet here he was.

Clark groaned and got up. All he was doing here was psyching himself up.

 _If I really want to know,_ he thought, _I'll investigate more tomorrow._

So Clark walked back into his house. He met his parents and told them an edited version of the night's events. He told them he was attacked and the man was probably mutated. He left out the fangs and the unbeating heart and the vampire suspicion. He had been about to say it, but couldn't.

Like saying it would make it more real somehow, make it present.

His dad had freaked when Clark described how he'd nearly crippled the man. Clark hadn't glossed over that. He'd been raised to take responsibility for his mistakes. As egotistical as it might seem to say, Clark's mistakes did in fact tend to matter more than other people's.

After a while they all calmed down. They had dinner. They talked about other things. The warm light of his home and his family suffused Clark, banishing the cold darkness to a distant corner of his mind. He nearly forgot about the night's events.

But later, with his parents and most of the state asleep, Clark lay in bed, staring at the ceiling. Outside in the night the crickets were singing. Crickets had never sounded sinister before.

* * *

Clark rose with the sun. He went out to do his chores and came back to find his father staring at the phone receiver like it might turn into a snake at any moment.

"Dad? What's wrong?"

Jonathan Kent turned and looked at him. "That was Marsh."

Deputy Waeland. Clark felt his heart start to jump.

"He said that the man he took in yesterday escaped from custody."

Clark's eyes widened.

"He wants you to go down there and give a statement."

Clark ran a hand through his hair. "What should I do?"

His father seemed to consider it. "Go. After class. Marsh's a friend. If there was gonna be trouble for you, he'd tell it."

Clark nodded. Then he said "Dad...I think you and mom should stay inside tonight. Don't invite anyone in, okay?"

His father frowned at him. "What makes you say that?"

Clark shook his head. "It's not really anything I know...nothing I can prove. Just...call it an instinct."

His father took a deep breath. Clark worried his father would be stubborn about it.

"Well," his father said, "I guess that should be fine. Just remember, Clark. Be careful out there. No matter what, don't get discovered."

Clark almost rolled his eyes. He'd heard that one about a billion times over the course of his life on Earth. Fortunately, his quick reflexes let him catch it in time.

He got ready and just barely caught the bus.

He crammed himself into his usual seat next to his oldest friend, Pete Ross.

"Yo, Clark. I need you to do me a favor my good, excellent, long time friend with whom I share a bond which is really more like a brotherhood-"

Clark didn't resist the eye roll this time. "-who is it?"

Pete grinned. He leaned in close, though over the cacophony of chattering students they probably wouldn't be heard even at full volume.

"The lovely Miss Zechlin."

Clark raised an eyebrow. " _Lori_ Zechlin. Really?"

Pete shrugged. "A man's gotta live life to the fullest, Clark. Take risks."

"She doesn't seem like your usual type. Her style is very…"

"Clark," Pete said, putting a hand on Clark's shoulder. "I am a young man on a journey of self discovery. How can I ever learn about myself if I refuse to try new things?"

Clark shook his head. "If you say so, though I'd try a less creepy way of putting it in the future. But I've explained to you before that this thing I do isn't an exact science-"

"-I'm aware-"

"-and you shouldn't be putting so much reliance on it."

"Clark. I know. It's just, in the game, every advantage helps. So, can I count on you or can I count on you?"

Clark rolled his eyes again, but he was smiling. "Fine, fine. Whatever."

Pete grinned again. He pumped a victorious fist. "Haha, yes! C-man the wingman."

Then Pete turned his head from one side to the other and leaned even closer. Clark again thought that this was unnecessary.

"So," Pete said, "will you be uh...you know...practicing today?"

Clark scratched the bridge of his nose with a thumb. He wondered if he should tell Pete. It might do him some good, to share his suspicions with the only friend who knew his secret.

But that same fear from the night before gripped him. He didn't want to believe it himself, and there was this irrational, powerful feeling like if he admitted the possibility existed, then it would be actuality.

"No," Clark said, "I don't think I'll be practicing today. I've got some chores to do after class. I don't know how long they'll take."

 _Once I know more...once I know for sure what I'm dealing with, then I can tell Pete._

Pete leaned back into his seat. "Damn. Oh well, be sure to let me know if you do decide to practice. You know I don't miss a second of that."

Clark smiled and promised. They talked about inane things all the way to school, and once again the light almost banished the darkness entirely.

After they'd reached the school and filled out of the bus, Clark led Pete around the back to the bleachers where Lori Zechlin was to be found, seated a few rows up reading a book.

Lori Zechlin could have been cut out of a _Gothic Girl_ magazine. Black hair, black eyes, black eyeliner, lipstick, nail polish.

Black on black on black contrasting with her pale skin. Silver jewelry gleamed from her ears, her wrists, her belt, her neck. One of the several deliberate challenges to the school dress code that so often sat her in detention.

She was a REBEL with capital everything, the circled 'A' for anarchy sprayed on every stop sign. The most important thing to her, near as Clark could tell, was that everyone know how little she cared about their opinion. She spent a lot of time and energy on it.

Clark stopped where he could watch her unnoticed. "Alright, go."

Pete took a few deep breaths before he started walking up the bleachers.

While Clark could phase out his senses to extend one, he could also do the reverse. Focus all his senses on a specific point, or in this case person.

The sounds behind and around him faded away. His vision blurred at the edges until he existed in a tunnel with only Lori at the other end. Like this he could see every pore on her face, every fiber in her clothes, hear every beat of her heart and the slightest change in her voice even from yards away.

He watched as Pete approached and she looked up from the book she was reading, _The Golden Bough_ by a James George Frazer.

Pete greeted her, said some things that escaped Clark. Focused in like this, Clark was basically insensate to everything that wasn't his target. The important part was Lori's reaction.

The dilation of the pupils, the tiny jump in pitch, the quicken of the pulse, the blood that flowed beneath cheeks. There for a second then fading.

Clark smirked. _Winner, winner.. there may even be chicken involved in some dinner-like capacity._

Then Lori turned and saw him. Same reaction.

 _Oh dear._

"Yo, Clark!" she called out to him.

 _I did warn him not to rely on this too much._ Clark let his perception expand back out to normal. He smiled and walked up.

"Hey, Alice." he said.

Lori's mouth twitched in a flash of a smirk. "See, Pete, Clark knows how I like to be called."

She got up and came down the bleachers. Clark could smell Marlboro smoke. "When's our next match-up, Kent?"

Clark shrugged. "You know me. Farm chores all day every day."

"Boo. You're pretty much the worst."

"I'll let you know."

"You'd better. You're the only challenge for miles."

Sunlight flashed off one of Lori's necklaces. It was a silver cross with a ring encircling the intersection of the two lines.

It made Clark think back to the night before, and the man who'd attacked him. He ran a hand through his hair.

"Hey, Alice. Do you know anything about the mythology of vampires?"

The smirk dimmed and Lori gave him a thoughtful look. Then she said, "what I like about you, Kent, is that when you ask me something like that I can tell you're not making fun of me. Not like most of the other jackasses. I know a little bit about vampires."

Her hand reached down and she held out the cross. "Know what this is?"

"A crucifix?"

She shook her head. "It's not a crucifix, but it _is_ a cross. The symbol of the cross predates Christianity. This is a celtic cross. To be honest, no one is totally sure of what it means, but the working theory is that it represents the sun. Some people think that's the origin of the myth that crosses hurt vampires. Magic is all about symbolism after all. Mind over matter…"

"And the mind thinks in symbols."

"Exactly," she was getting more enthusiastic now. "You may think your thoughts are in words, but what are words? They're just sounds. But we take a certain sound or collection of sounds and we say 'this now means this'. Language is all about symbols-"

"-hey, Zechlin!"

Clark and Lori both turned to see Lori's friend Joan Meyers calling out and waving from the other end of the school grounds. Lori waved back, then she turned to Clark.

"Sorry, gotta jet."

"Thanks anyway."

As Lori turned to leave, Clark spoke again.

"Do you believe in it?"

Lori turned to him, her face very serious now. "In magic? Yes. Absolutely."

Clark gave her an even look. Then he nodded.

She turned to walk away again, then turned back again. "Do you?"

Clark scratched the corner of his eyebrow with a thumb. He glanced up and saw some dark clouds rolling in from the horizon as white ones drifted quickly directly overhead. Running from the storm.

Did he believe?

"I'm not sure."

Lori shrugged and finally walked off.

Pete thudded down the bleachers and jumped down next to Clark. "What was all that about with the vampires?"

Clark shrugged. "Just something I was thinking about last night."

"Hm. Whatever, weirdo. That's not important. What is important is…" he gave Clark an expectant look.

Clark pretended to play dumb until Pete socked him in the arm.

"Alright already. Yes, there were definite signs of attraction."

"Aww yeah!" Pete began pumping his fist.

" _But_ ," Clark said, "as I've told you _multiple_ times, it might not mean anything. Physical attraction is a totally autonomous reaction. Lots of people are attracted to lots of people. Doesn't mean they'd ever date them. Besides, physical reactions can be misleading and have multiple causes. I'm not a mind reader."

Pete waved his warnings off. "Whatever, Clark. Anything that tilts the odds in my favor even a smidge is worth it. I bet she's a freak. She's a goth, _and_ she's Wiccan. I bet she's two freaks."

Clark shook his head. "A, stereotyping. B, I wouldn't know anything about that."

"That's your own fault." Pete smirked again and started rapidly jabbing Clark's arm. "You could find out in a heartbeat if you'd stop mooning over Lana all day every day. You drop a bit of that Kent charm and I guarantee that half the girls here will drop their-"

A voice from behind them cut through. Clark could smell rich coffee.

"-I thought I heard the howling of a starving hound...but no, it's just you, Pete."

Clark grinned and turned around. "Hey, Chloe."

A head and change shorter than Clark, Chloe Sullivan was bright, blonde, and probably drank what should be a lethal amount of coffee every day.

Chloe gave Clark one of her brilliant smiles. "Hey Clark."

Then she turned. "Pete, you're a pig. This is not news, so I can't run the story in the next edition of _the Torch._ "

Pete's mouth gaped. "Whoa, whoa, hold on. I am a man fully in touch with his own natural instincts. Chloe, let me tell you something right now, and I want you to remember this for the rest of your life. Even the classiest man you'll ever meet is still just a man, and that man is just an animal. That applies to the women too, by the way."

Chloe rolled her eyes. She turned again. "What about you, Clark? Despite your deep, burning passion for Lana, does some baser part of you dream of a vast harem of beautiful women who service your every...need?"

Clark smirked. "No comment."

Chloe shook her head and took a sip from the paper cup in her hands emblazoned with the logo of the Talon.

The bell rang and the three moved into the school. Eventually Pete had to peel off to head to his own class, leaving Clark and Chloe together a little longer.

"Chloe," Clark said. "I'm not sure yet but...I might need your help with something later."

Chloe looked up, questions in her eyes. "Yeah? What about?"

"Just a bit of research. I'm not even sure I'll need it. Will you be editing the torch today?"

Chloe sighed. "Yep. All by my lonesome. I need an assistant. I'm getting sick of staying till sunset doing that whole paper myself."

Clark smiled. "And yet, there's nothing you'd rather be doing."

Chloe bumped his arm with her shoulder. "And yet."

She went her own way and Clark walked to his class alone. Without his friends to distract him, worry creeped back to the front of Clark's mind. How had that man escaped? Where had he gone? Who was he? Could he be out there seeking revenge? What if he attacked someone?

Clark tried to shake his fears off. After school he would go and investigate. Maybe then the questions that haunted him could be put to rest with answers.

* * *

"Clark." Deputy Waeland greeted him as Clark walked down the corridor of Smallville General.

Clark stopped outside a room. Deputy Waeland was standing in front of the closed door. The blinds were drawn.

"Sorry, Deputy. I had class."

The Deputy just nodded. He looked tired.

"You needed me to give a statement?"

The Deputy stared him down. "No, Clark.I don't need you to give a statement."

An uneasy feeling squirmed in Clark's stomach. He focused on the Deputy. The world behind him fell away. Clark couldn't find any signs of hostility. At least he thought not. He found fear though. "Deputy, what's wrong?"

The Deputy took a long deep breath. "I need you to go in."

Clark raised an eyebrow. "In? Into the room?"

"Yes into the room, Kent, god dammit!"

Clark stepped back.

The Deputy grit his teeth and dropped his gaze. "No one else has been in."

Clark was still tensed, ready to spring to action if he needed to. Though what that action might be he tried not to consider. "Isn't that against protocol? Letting a civilian in first?"

The Deputy sighed. "Yeah, well...I won't tell if you won't. Just... _please._ "

The last word was a whisper almost too soft for human hearing.

Clark nodded.

The deputy stepped aside.

Clark stepped up, put his hand on the door.

The Deputy spoke again. "I brought him in last night. The nurses on call were...they checked him out."

The man's voice was cracking under some great strain. "The man was _dead_ , Clark. No heartbeat...cold...but he was still movin', still groanin'. Most of the nurses bolted. They wouldn't go near him. One helped me out. We cuffed him to the bed in there-"

"-you cuffed him?" Clark asked.

The Deputy shrugged. "You said he might be dangerous. The plan was to call for a specialist to fly in from Metropolis in the morning… 'cept come morning, we found…"

The Deputy's expression closed and Clark knew that was all he'd get for now. Clark braced himself for anything and pushed the door open.

The blinds in this room were open, letting the sunlight trickle in and feed the sunflowers on the wallpaper.

Clark looked over to the bed. A pair of handcuffs dangled from the metal rails around the frame. The sheets were rumpled and mussed by someone's tossing and turning.

And, of course, there were the ashes. A pile of ashes lay atop the sheets.

Clark swallowed. He turned to face the window. With the position of the building, this room directly faced the rising sun. As soon as daylight broke, the rays of the sun would have flooded in, washed over the room and bathed the man on the bed,

Clark thought back to the Deputy's words. They'd left the man here overnight, found a pile of ashes in the morning. Clark fell into a plush visitor's chair near the bed and stared at it.

The room was full of warming light, but Clark felt cold.

Eventually he reached over, took a pinch of the ashes and dropped them into his open palm. What Clark had done the night before to expand his hearing he did now for his vision. He filled himself totally with the sight before him, concentrated on it with all his power

The little pile of ashes seemed to grow closer and closer, larger and larger, magnifying again and again until he reached his limit and found himself staring at a dozen cells, dead and burned. But they were animal cells to be sure. Probably even human, though Clark wasn't yet confident enough in his ability to tell one kind of animal cell from another, seen under the power of his "microscopic vision".

His sight retracted, returning to normal. Clark blinked, feeling dizziness and the beginnings of a migraine. He knew these would pass soon.

Clark wiped the ashes back onto the bed and spent another minute in recovery before he stood up and walked out of the room. He turned to the Deputy with a ready lie.

The Deputy just shook his head. "Don't say anything. I don't want to know. That man...that thing, he combusted didn't he?"

Clark said nothing.

The Deputy shuddered. "No heartbeat, cold body, burned to ashes in the sunlight…"

Clark said nothing.

The Deputy looked up. There was terror in his eyes and a quaver in his voice. "Clark...I know I don't have the right to ask you this, not me, not of a kid. But…"

The Deputy looked down at the speckled linoleum. "I always wanted to be a police, Clark. That's the truth. I love this town, and I wanted to protect it, keep its people safe."

The Deputy looked up at him again. "But this...this is- how can a man be ready? How can a man be trained for this! I'm not- I don't...things have been happening in this town since the meteor shower. Strange things, inexplicable...I don't know how or why, and I know you and Jonathan are keeping things secret, Clark. I respect that, but...I know, somehow, all these strange things that happen, you make them better."

Clark felt alarm shoot through him. He held his breath.

"What I'm asking is...lord knows by speaking these words I shouldn't even have a badge anymore, but...this thing, can it be one of yours, Clark?"

The man was begging now, pleading. "You've got this one, right Clark? I won't- I won't need to…this is on you, right?"

The man choked on his own words.

Clark stared at him. He remembered John Waeland, remembered all those years ago when the local fair's annual corn maze had caught fire, leaving a girl stranded inside. John Waeland had rushed into the blaze to pull her out.

When Jackson Spencer had held his family hostage in a room of the Moonlight Motel, John Waeland had gone in, alone and unarmed, and talked the man down.

Clark looked at this man who had always reminded him of an old oak tree. Now he trembled like the last leaf on a barren branch, shaking in the winter gale.

"Yeah," Clark said. "This one's on me."

Clark turned and strode out. A monster had come to Smallville. It had crawled out of the dark nightmare place where monsters were supposed to remain and it had come here. This was no longer a fight for humans.

Clark stepped out of the hospital. He needed to find out more. Who this man...this vampire was. Where he had come from, why he had come here, and most importantly...would there be more on the way?

* * *

Clark made his way back to the school. He caught sight of the Smallville Crows in the middle of their afternoon practice. Season would be starting soon.

Clark felt a pang of longing. His father had worn the jacket, been the star quarterback in his youth. He'd passed his love of the game to Clark. But that was closed to him forever.

Clark found Chloe in the school's computer lab. The half dozen outdated computers were pretty much all the school had.

Chloe looked up from one when he came in. She smiled and Clark got the feeling that she had been waiting for him.

He felt a stab of guilt. "Hey, Chloe. I know you're busy editing, but-"

"-hey, for you I've always got time. So what was it you were needing my help with?"

Clark moved over and took the chair next to her. He'd been thinking of how much to tell her and how. Telling Chloe even a little could be dangerous. The girl had skills. But that was also what Clark needed from her.

"I was attacked last night."

Chloe's smile vanished. "Whoah, what do you mean?"

"I was at the Talon last night. Some guy was giving Lana the creeps. So I stayed with her 'til she drove home-"

"-she didn't offer you a ride?"

Clark smiled wryly. "She...may have been upset about something I said."

"That's no excuse." Chloe huffed. "I don't call her 'the Princess' anymore, but damn if I don't sometimes appreciate how well that name can occasionally fit."

"Anyway, after she goes, this same creepy guy jumps me."

Chloe's eyes widened. "What? Was he trying to mug you or something?"

Clark shrugged. "Maybe. I fought him off and he split."

"Have you told the cops?"

"Of course. Deputy Waeland's on it."

"Ah. Good old, Dep. Waeland. That guy's tougher than old boot leather."

"True. But even he said there wasn't much to go on."

"If it was just a smash and grab, guy's probably gone to ground. I doubt they'll find him, but I don't think he'll bother you again either."

"Yeah, I know." Clark leaned back in his chair and stretched his legs out. "Still, I was wondering if you could help me out? You know, just for my peace of mind?"

Chloe smirked. "Sure, I guess I can do that. I didn't really feel much like editing today anyway."

Clark grinned. "Thanks. Don't get me wrong, I have a lot of respect for the men and women of the county sheriff's department. It's just...none of them are Chloe SUllivan."

Chloe sat a little straighter in her chair as she turned to face her screen.

Clark glanced at a motivational poster on the wall so he wouldn't have to see the way her cheeks turned pink. Hang in there kitten. Almost friday.

Guilt gripped him again.

Chloe always did right by him. He should do something for her this time around, something nice. Unfortunately, what she really wanted from him he couldn't give. He had tried once, and failed.

"Well," she said, "first thing's first. What do we know about this guy? Did you talk to Lana, see if he used a card at the Talon?"

Clark shook his head. "I was there. He paid cash."

Clark reached into his jacket pocket. And pulled out a folded square of paper and handed it to Chloe. "That's what he looked like. Blonde hair, blue eyes, australian accent."

Chloe unfolded the paper and stared at it. She whistled. "Clark, you continue to amaze."

Superhuman dexterity and near photographic recall made things like sketching detailed portraits something of a party trick.

"Well," Chloe said, "someone in Smallville with an Australian accent will not go unnoticed. Know what that means?"

"Cold calls?"

"Cold calls."

Clark winced in sympathy. "Sorry."

She waved him off. "I spend my own time."

"What are you thinking, motels?"

Chloe nodded with a smirk. "You've been paying attention."

"Are you sure the motels are just going to tell you about their customers?"

"Clark, Clark, Clark. Don't underestimate how much value these bored gentlemen place on a few minutes of enthusiastic flattery and conversation with a young, peppy school girl like myself." She grinned again.

Clark shook his head. "You're clearly a badass. I would not have the courage."

"I'm a reporter, Clark. If you're gonna chase dirt, be prepared to get dirty."

"Want me to help you?"

"Aww." Chloe patted his shoulder. "No offense, Clark. You've never been the greatest at...shall we call it _social finessing_?"

Clark rolled his eyes. "Fine. Well, least I can do is keep you company. This might take a while."

"That-" Chloe got up and made her way to fetch the cordless. She'd already pulled up a list of motels in the area. "-would be swell."

Clark booted up a computer for his own use as Chloe started down the list. He stared at the blinking prompt in the search bar.

 _This is dumb,_ he told himself.

He stared a little more. Then he typed "vampire" into the search bar and ran it.

 _Christ._ Hundreds of thousands of hits. He browsed a few pages, but didn't find anything beyond what he anticipated. He refined the search a little more. "Vampires", "bumpy face", "vampire transformation".

Nothing major.

He ran another search. "Conditions that can cause a heart to stop", "body still moving after heart stopped".

Nothing.

"Dental mutations", nothing. Clark rubbed his eyes and shook his head.

"Spontaneous combustion", lots of hits. Nothing like what he was looking for.

Then he looked up and typed, "is sitting around trying to prove or disprove the existence of vampires with an internet search engine proof that I'm insane?"

That didn't turn up anything useful either.

Unbeknownst to him, a vigilant program hidden in lines of code stirred from its slumber as he ran his searches. It turned its attention to him and watched, and waited. It counted up points of interest. Not enough to write home about, not yet. But it kept its eyes on the town of Smallville, and one computer in Smallville High in particular.

It was early evening before Chloe got a hit. She raised a triumphant hand gripping a piece of paper. "Who's your momma?"

Clark pretended to think about it. "Martha Kent."

"Not anymore." She handed him the paper. "The Wayside Motel at this address had a guy fitting our description check in a few days ago. How do you like your sundaes Clark?"

Clark smirked. "Why, with a cherry on top of course."

"Here's your cherry. Guy didn't come back last night."

Clark nodded. "Sounds like the place."

Chloe's face grew concerned. "Hey, Clark...what exactly are you going to do with this information?"

"I'm going to tell Waeland of course. What, did you think I was going to go down there myself? Chloe, that's crazy dangerous."

Chloe relaxed and snorted. "Yeah, I guess it is."

Clark closed out of his rather fruitless search and stood up. "Thanks Chloe, I'll make it up to you for sure."

"Duh."

Clark grinned and left, trying not to think too hard on the disappointment that flashed across Chloe's face as he went.

* * *

Before heading to the hotel, he stopped in on his parents at home. He told them everything. His mother's eyes grew wide with shock, but his father grew strangely still, his expression distant.

When he finished, his mother spoke up. "Clark, are you sure this man wasn't some kind of meteor infected?"

Clark shook his head. "This was something different, something else. I don't think this was a meteor mutant...I think this was a real vampire."

"Clark...you can't be serious. Vampires? What makes you so certain this man didn't just get a mutation that made him seem like a vampire?"

"The meteor rocks almost never give multiple abilities. Even when they do they're at least tangentially related. This guy's body was moving without a heartbeat. His face transformed, he grew fangs, he could see in the dark, his body was cold, he combusted in sunlight…"

Clark's mother turned whiter and whiter. She drew her sweater tighter around herself.

Clark looked down at the table. "And...when he turned to dust, so did his clothes. But nothing happened to the bed sheets under him. That goes way beyond the meteor rocks. That's something…"

 _Magical._

But he didn't say it. The thought was, ironically, alien. Even to his bizarre world. He looked to his father. The man was gripping the armrest of the sofa with bloodless knuckles.

"Dad?"

His father swallowed and looked up. Clark and his mother were both staring.

"Clark," his father began. He seemed to be looking at someplace far away. "When I was...I think about your age, me and some friends drove up to Metropolis. We were just being dumb kids, heading to the big city for some fun, maybe a little trouble. There was a bar up there called McNulty's that didn't card. It was me, Earl Jenkins, ol' Marsh Waeland, and Doc."

Clark raised an eyebrow. "Doctor Simon?"

His father cracked a tiny smirk. "We called him 'Doc' even back then."

The smirk faded. "We'd all been drinking, and it was getting late. We'd rented a motel for the night and we started to head back. I don't remember how, but I got separated from the others. I turned into some alley...I bumped into some guy. Raggedy guy, I figured he was homeless or something.

"I said, 'sorry sir.' And I went on my way. Pretty soon I hear footsteps behind me. I turn, and there he is, same guy. We're behind some building. The exit has this dim red light over it so I can sorta see him, but my vision is still hazy from the beers. I get to thinking that maybe this guy's looking to stick me up. I stand a little straighter. I tell him I don't want no trouble, but if he does I'll oblige him.

"I was mostly bluffing. I could barely stand up straight, let alone fight proper. The guy calls my bluff. He lunges at me. I take a couple swings, but it doesn't even phase this guy. I've dropped guys twice his size with blows like I was throwing. Then the guy grabs me by the throat. Now I'm thinking he must be on something powerful, some cocaine or something because this guy picks me up off my feet with one arm and slams me to the wall.

"I hit my head and I'm fading in and out when…"

Clark's father leaned forward. He closed his eyes, took a long breath and shuddered.

"I see the man's face...it changed. Right before my very eyes I saw it change. It turned just like you said, Clark. His eyes were yellow, his eyebrows and forehead were all bumpy...and his teeth...I thought that was it. I thought I was gonna die there. That man was gonna kill me in the alley.

"I'm hanging there, and I see this woman come up behind him. I can't much remember...she looked kinda european. Eastern european I thought at the time. She comes up behind him and the man drops me, turns to face her. Now I'm here, sitting in an alley, dazed out of my brain, watching these two people fight. I've never seen people fight like that before...they were so fast. Faster than a person _could_ be. I could barely make out the silhouette of someone else standing further down the alley.

"Eventually the woman, she's got a wooden stake in her hand. She stabs the man. Plunges that stake into his chest. I swear the man exploded into dust right in front of me, raggedy coat and all. I'm fading out, so tired. I swear I hear the man at the end of the alley. I remember I paid attention, because his voice, it was British or some such, something I'd never heard outside the tv. I remember hearing him say, 'good work, Slayer. Let's move to sector two'. Then I passed out. My friends found me eventually and woke me up. I'm lucky nothing else happened to me while I was out."

Clark and his mother stared.

His mother spoke. "You never told me that story."

His father shrugged. "I thought I'd hallucinated the whole thing. I was pretty far gone that night, and...obviously...monsters don't exist."

 _Or so you thought. So we all thought._ Clark leaned back against the kitchen counter. "Maybe you guys should stay inside again tonight. Just in case."

His father looked up. "And you?"

"I've got to check out this motel. I need to find out what I can about this guy, if he's the only one in town…"

The oven dinged. His mother got up. She touched Clark's arm as she passed him by. "You've got time, at least, for dinner first. Right?"

Clark smiled. The thought of the delicious warm roast they could all smell brightened the dark mood in the room considerably.

"Sure mom, I can stay for dinner. I'm gonna head up to my room for a bit, call me when it's ready."

His mother nodded and Clark headed upstairs. He squeezed his father's shoulder as he passed. His father looked at him and smiled a little, but he still looked haunted. Clark went up to his room. He closed the door behind him and dropped into his desk chair.

He swiveled it so he could prop his feet up onto his bed and turned to stare out of his window. The sky had grown red and the sun was sinking real low. Night would be on him soon.

A fear gripped his heart. The night would be on him soon...what he'd said to his mother before was right. This was something different, something new. Everything had changed. The sun that had set yesterday had set on a different world than the one it was setting on now.

This was a world of dark things that Clark could only guess at. Clark could almost feel the shadows lengthening around him. Before they were nothing, now they were insidious.

 _We grow up being afraid of things in the dark,_ Clark thought. _But eventually, we stop. We tell ourselves there's nothing there. It's just our imagination. There's no such things as monsters._

And now, Clark had learned that they were wrong. He couldn't even explain this terror which gripped him. But it was old, and it was strong. Clark had taken a peek into the veil of shadows, gotten a glimpse of the malevolent shapes that moved there, the things people closed their eyes and covered their ears to. The things they pretended didn't exist.

 _Hear no evil, see no evil._

Everyone but Clark had that luxury. For better or worse, the dark things were part of his world now. Forever.

* * *

"Pinged! We've been pinged!" Willow burst into the hotel room.

Buffy sat up on her bed and stared at her friend. "What's happening now?"

Willow continued gesturing emphatically and speaking at a frequency only discernible to dogs. She seemed very pleased about something.

Buffy held a hand up. "Wills, hold on. Slow down to human speed. What's going on? We got ponged?"

"Pinged."

"Right...so what is pinged?"

Willow took a deep breath. She looked around at Dawn on the other bed who raised an eyebrow at her.

"Okay," Willow said, "so you know how we've been using magic these past few months to find the newly activated Slayers?"

"Uh-huh," Buffy said.

"And you know how it hasn't exactly been super effective all the time."

"Uh-huh."

Willow grinned. "Well, I may or may not have, hypothetically, received an offer a few weeks ago to do some consulting work for a certain prominent online search engine, I won't name any names."

"Okay…"

"So anyway, maybe while I was helping this unnamed company improve the performance and security of their search engine, I may or may not have slipped a special program into the code without anyone noticing."

Buffy stared at her blankly.

Willow huffed. "So a while back I was talking to myself. I said, 'self, there has to be more you can do to reach these potential Slayers.' Then I got the offer from secret mystery company and I had an idea. So I created a special program with maybe just a _teeny_ bit of magic that basically watches what people are searching on the search engine. I've programmed it to start paying attention to certain keywords. Words like 'vampire', 'super-strength', 'slayer', etc etc. I figure the newly activated Slayers are having all these freaky things happen to them, things that are hard to talk about. Maybe they go online for answers, and maybe we find them that way."

Buffy knitted her brow. "I don't know, Will. It's not like vampire is an uncommon term-"

"-oh, oh, I know! But I did this thing where I made it so the program looks for groups of related searches and uses an algorithm to determine the likelihood of a potential Slayer. If it reaches a certain threshold it 'pings' me."

"So when you're saying 'we've been pinged'..."

Willow grinned. "Mama's found us a newly activated Slayer...probably."

"Where?"

"Someplace in Kansas called Smallville."

* * *

The Vampire known as Adept Randolph made his way through the twisted darkness of the Catacombs. He hated it down here. The passageways grew narrower and narrower, closing slowly so he had to first stoop, then crawl, hands and knees sliding on the slimy film that covered the black stones.

After a personal eternity, Randolph stopped. The catacombs here opened up into the vast space of the Mausoleum of the Brotherhood of the Ancient. There was space aplenty now, but Randolph darned not rise from his hands and knees.

In fact he went down lower, prostrating himself, touching his forehead to the floor loud enough for the sound to echo again and again in the chamber.

"Master," Randolph said. No response. He dared not look up to try and see if the robed and hooded figure that knelt contemplating the statute of the Ancient One had heard him.

The silence stretched on until Randolph couldn't take it anymore.

"Master Koschei."

He heard the rustle of fabric, and felt a sudden tremendous force slam him into the ground. It continued pushing him down, flattening him on the stone. Randolph was overjoyed that the Master had seen fit to gaze upon him. He received the bone crushing attention in enraptured silence.

Suddenly the force let up. The Master must have looked away. Randolph struggled to push himself back to his kneeling position. He had his cue to continue.

"Master. We have had word from Adept Fletcher. He...sir, he thinks he's found it."

The weight of his master's appraisal was on him again. So potent it whipped his face onto the stone floor hard enough to break his nose. Randolph fought the urge to lick up the blood that leaked out.

"He says he's found it at last. He says his calculations bore fruit. He's found it in a Kansas town called Smallville."

Randolph heard another rustling of the robe. His eyes grew wide and his mouth gaped. He couldn't believe it. If his heart still beat, it would be racing with joy. For the first time in centuries, his master had stood up.

The force pinning him down disappeared as his master looked away. Randolph skittered out of the Mausoleum, making sure to keep his head to the floor. It took everything in him not to start whooping with excitement.

He had passage to arrange, to the town of Smallville.


	2. Chapter 2

_"_ _Hold on. This is a bad idea, right? I mean, this is what happens in all the movies? Some too-smart-by-a-half idiot gets curious and solves some spooky puzzle, then boom...Lemarchand's Box, 'we have such sights to show you', etc. etc?_ _" - Clark Kent_

* * *

Clark slid to a stop about a hundred yards from the road. He heard dust and gravel being kicked up behind him and winced. That couldn't be good for his shoes. Once he came to a full stop, he bent over and rested his hands on his knees. He felt like he'd taken a wrecking ball to every inch of his body.

Still, he was getting better at it, controlling the forces that accelerated and deccelerated him and allowed him to stop and turn on a dime at tremendous speeds while flipping the bird to the law of conservation of momentum.

Clark checked the soles of his shoes. They'd been chafed smooth by the sudden friction of his stop. He had misapplied the counterforce. Clark turned and looked behind him. There was a trail of trampled grass that stretched out across the field to the horizon.

 _Shoot._ It was something to practice on.

He turned toward the dipping red sun and walked to the road and then farther up to the Wayside Motel.

 _This is a ways out of town,_ Clark thought. _Did this guy...this vampire have a car?_

Maybe he hadn't needed one. For all Clark knew, he'd been carried into town by a swarm of bats.

The Wayside wouldn't be getting a five star review from anyone. It was a small place, one floor, long enough for maybe ten rooms. The facade's paint was probably once a bright red but now was faded to near brown and peeling everywhere. A parking lot with three cars in residence stretched out from the front door to the road, but it was cracked and grass was starting to push up from underneath. The sign atop the rusted metal pole near the road flickered intermittently. Always threatening to die out, never following through on the threat.

Clark focused and slipped into X-ray vision. Trying to see through multiple layers or thicker things made the image fuzzier and fuzzier, so instead of simply trying to look through the whole building from where he was, Clark circled around it so he could peer into each room individually.

Of the ten rooms, three were occupied. One had two tenants, the other's had one each. Clark made sure to listen in, straining his hearing for the faint thump of their heartbeats.

Another five rooms were totally vacant. Clark gave those a quick scan and moved on. There were two that were empty, but showed clear signs of occupation. Clark stopped by the window of one. Time now for a sense he almost never used and had the least mastery of.

Clark closed his eyes. The sounds of the evening faded away to the barest whisper. Every smell became magnified a hundredfold. He could smell grass, sweat, coffee, water, the thousand and change oils that were always sliding off a human body. A living human body.

The smells faded away, the sounds returned, and Clark opened his eyes. This didn't seem like the one. Clark hesitated outside the window. He didn't trust his sense of smell as much as his hearing or vision. He rarely used it and rarely practiced it.

Eventually he just shrugged to himself and went to the window of the other room. He repeated the process. He could smell old blood, paper, soil, and Camel cigarettes. The same he'd smelled on Creepy Guy before. This was the room.

Clark switched to X-ray vision and stared through the room again. There was some luggage on the floor. Clark looked through that as well. The extra layers made the image unclear, but it seemed like mostly clothes. Clark kept scanning. There were several books and articles. He couldn't read them from this angle.

 _No choice,_ he thought, _I have to get inside and look around._

Clark tested the window, but that was locked because of course it was. He thought about forcing it. That could get messy, and would certainly leave evidence of his being there. For Clark, it was usually better to try and avoid leaving a mark.

 _Better try another approach._

First, Clark stared through the room's door so he could see the number from the other side, 103. Then, Clark moved closer to the motel entrance, stared through the wall. A large, squat man was sitting at the reception desk hunched over a magazine. Right above him, pointed toward the door, was a security camera.

 _Crap._

Clark considered going in there and trying to bluff his way into the room, but Chloe had been right. "Social finessing" was not his forte. Clark looked over to the parking lot and a plan started to form. He felt his heart start to race.

 _This is gonna be a close one._

Clark took a few deep breaths to steady his nerves. He was going to need focus, for what he was going to try would need a great deal of fine control. Clark moved to a faded auburn station wagon.

 _Sorry,_ he thought, before he bumped his fist into the side of the car hard enough to set off the alarm. Then he moved back around the building. In X-ray vision he watched the clerk look up from his magazine. The man slid his ponderous bulk off the stool he was sitting in and strolled towards the door.

He looked outside. As soon as he realized which car was screaming out, the man jogged out, pulling keys out of his pocket as he did.

The door started to pull shut behind the man.

 _Now!_

Clark felt energy surge through him, his whole body was humming with power. He stepped forward and he felt this force acting on him, flowing through him. It felt less like he was running and more like he was a boat whose sails had caught a powerful gust that propelled him forward. His feet were moving. He was making the motions associated with running. But Clark knew what he was doing now was something very different. He was...flowing, was how he'd always thought of it.

Clark was behind the man almost instantly.

 _Now!_

Clark began trying to turn to the side. He felt more power flood out of him. By all rights, at the speeds he was moving, he should have just kept shooting forward. But he felt something strange, like something inside him had twisted and turned with him. Suddenly that wind in his sail that had been at his back was changing direction, turning him with it.

Clark darted into the building through the door which seemed from his perspective to have frozen in place. Clark made it to the center of the lobby when he made the force turn him again with another outpouring of energy. He heard a strange sound from below him, but didn't have time to think on it as he shot down the hallway until he reached the door to the room he wanted.

Now the hardest part. Stops were always the hardest part. Yet more energy burst out of him. The driving wind suddenly spun around him again until he was moving against its current. It blasted him full on from the front. Clark clenched his teeth as he took the sudden force. Clark imagined that it was something like crashing into a padded wall for normal humans. Or maybe running into a giant cube of jello.

When done correctly. Otherwise it was like hitting the Great Wall of China.

But he stopped. He stopped instantly. The momentum from his forward dash was totally countered and neutralized. He had moved so fast, he knew he would be a vague sort of blur on the camera, likely to be dismissed as a glitch if the tape were ever reviewed. Which was unlikely. Clark knew places like this rewound their security tapes every day unless there was an incident.

 _Which means I for sure can't get caught now._ Clark turned around and looked behind him.

 _Crap._

There was a burned patch of carpet where he'd made the sudden turn in the lobby. He must have lost control on the razor sharp turn, created too much friction. That sound he'd heard had been his feet scorching the carpet.

Clark turned to face the door to room 103.

 _Tick-tock._

It was locked of course. Clark dropped down so he was eye level with the coppery bolt of the lock. He could see it through the crack in the door. Clark took a deep breath. He felt the power moving through him again, moving up, gathering in his eyes. He felt a tremendous pressure, and just when he thought his head would explode, he unleashed it.

Twin beams of heat shot from his eyes, focused onto the bolt. This, at least, Clark was confident with. Long weeks of practice let Clark now focus the beams of heat to points so fine they shot through the crack of the door without so much as touching the wood to either side.

The beams hit the bolt and Clark could hear a faint sizzling as the heat slowly cut through. The car alarm had stopped.

 _Crap._

The cutting seemed to take forever. Clark considered pouring more power, creating greater heat. But that was dangerous. More power meant less control, and a greater risk he'd accidentally set something on fire.

Clark heard the door swing open.

 _Come on, come on!_

He heard footsteps. Soon the man would be back by the counter and Clark would be in plain sight.

At last his "Heat Vision" cut through the last few centimeters of the lock. Clark put his hand on the knob and almost yanked the door open. He froze at the last second. He gently pulled the door open, slipped into the room, and gently closed the door behind him without a sound.

Clark pressed himself against the other side of the door, heart pounding, hearing stretched to its limit. He didn't hear the man walking down the hallway. He heard a groan of wood as the man heaved himself back onto the stool.

Clark slid down to the flood, drained, and sighed in relief.

So much energy in so little time. He felt dizzy. He leaned his head back against the cool wood of the door and waited for it to pass.

He looked around the room and seemed to understand for the first time that its occupant was dead. Or was it re-dead? Dead again?

Clark reached down and placed a hand on the floor. He felt the rough carpeting beneath his fingers, ran his hand over it. Eventually his fingers touched it, the thing he'd seen out of the corner of his eye as soon as he sat down.

Something dried and crusted. He turned to look at it fully. Yes, he had guessed right. It was blood.

 _Well,_ Clark thought, _I guess that's to be expected._

So, was there a body out there somewhere in the countryside? Another victim. Something Smallville had way too much of alrea-

Clark frowned. If the vampire had bitten someone, drained their blood...would that person turn into a vampire? And if that vampire bit more people...Clark shot to his feet. He needed to figure this thing out before his whole hometown turned into _From Dusk Till Dawn_.

Clark looked through the books and article clippings. Most of it was about local history, though there were some books about geology that seemed incongruous. Mostly they spoke about the drift of continents, and held theories about the positions landmasses used to have.

 _Weird._

Clark found a folded piece of paper. He unfolded it and discovered it to be a map of the county. The map was covered in indecipherable lines, notation, and what appeared to be formulae of some kind. Clark couldn't make heads or tails of it.

Clark looked around at the books, filled with highlighting and marginalia, and the heavily annotated map. It seemed to him like the vampire had been here searching for something. Clark folded up the map and tucked it inside his jacket.

Clark unzipped the suitcase and rifled through it. He had been more or less accurate. Mostly clothes, though he did find a cooler with several packets marked as type ab negative blood. That gave him some relief at least. It didn't seem like the vampire had been killing people for food.

At least, not in that room.

The relief evaporated.

Clark was about to close the suitcase. He stopped, looked at it again. On a whim he switched to X-ray vision and looked carefully at the suitcase itself.

 _Bingo._

He spotted a secret pocket, there seemed to be two things inside, a book and something spherical. Clark opened the pocket and reached in. He came back with a thick leather bound notebook so old and worn Clark was afraid it'd crumble to dust in his hands. Clark took the book and peeled it open. The writing was a fast, manic scrawl in a language Clark couldn't identify. One of the romance languages, by the look of it. Maybe italian or french. Clark closed the notebook and put it in his inner jacket pocket.

Then he reached back into the suitcase's secret compartment for the sphere and fished it out. It was a red orb the size of a golf ball and smooth as fine glass. It was deep red, but transparent. Clark held it up to his eye and saw the world through a crimson filter. Staring into it, it seemed to Clark like he could begin to see strange twisting geometries take shape withing the sphere, or perhaps by staring into it his mind was slowly unraveling the hidden patterns within the seemingly random streaks and distortions that-

Clark blinked.

"Hold on," he said. "This is a bad idea, right? I mean, this is what happens in all the movies? Some too-smart-by-a-half idiot gets curious and solves some spooky puzzle, then boom...Lemarchand's Box, 'we have such sights to show you', etc. etc?"

Clark stared at it while longer, then he stowed it away as well. He gave another sweep around the rest of the apartment but didn't find anything useful. Fortunately, leaving the room was much easier than trying to break in. Clark simply unlocked the window from this side and stole out.

It would be night soon. Clark chuckled at the sudden fear he had of being out after dark.

 _Ghost, goblins, and ghouls...oh my!_

Clark went home, moving slowly enough he could be confident of not damaging the book or the sphere. He took them both out when he got home, and placed them in a secret place of his own. The barn outside his home had a secret compartment beneath it. Clark moved aside the secret loose floorboard and placed the two items down there along with a little lead box.

That night he dreamed in old horror movies.

* * *

"But do I have to?"

Buffy rolled her eyes. "Yes, Dawn, you have to."

Dawn sniffed and crossed her arms over her chest. Buffy realised she was doing the same thing. She uncrossed her arms and relaxed.

The tension ebbed out of Dawn's posture too.

"Look," Buffy said, "this is important. Mom would want you to keep going to school."

Dawn looked away, toward the little tv set of their little room in the little motel off the I-90 between Seattle and Spokane.

"I get that," Dawn said, "but...I mean, why does it have to be now? I can always go back later. I mean we're in the middle of so much stuff."

Buffy shook her head. "This is one of those 'rip the bandage off' things, Dawnie. If we start making excuses we'll never stop and it'll just be harder to go later."

She cracked a smile. "Besides, you don't want people to think you're 'held-back delinquent' girl now do ya?"

Dawn snorted, but then she grew serious again. "Okay, yeah maybe...but, I don't really _need_ to go to class right? I could always just get a GED."

Buffy sighed. A hand almost went up to rub her temples but she stopped it. "Dawn, no, just trust me on this, it's better if you go to class."

Dawn huffed. "Whatever."

She stomped out of the room.

"Dawn, where are you going? We haven't finished packing!"

"I'm going to...get a snack from the vending machine, leave me alone!"

Buffy felt her fist ball up and she almost yelled something back but Willow poked her redhead into the doorway with that commiserating best friend smirk that Buffy was pretty sure was actually some kind of magic calming spell.

Willow stepped into the room. Buffy continued to glare at the wall at where she guessed Dawn would be.

"What's that word, Will? Like fratricide, but for annoying sisters?"

"Sororicide?"

"Yeah, that's what it is, sororicide."

"Wow...that's ghastly."

Buffy groaned. "She just makes me so…"

She gesticulated in the air, movements sharp with frustration. "I mean...obviously if word gets back to her of this I'll deny I ever said it, but she honestly had me thinking for a while there that she was actually more mature than I was. I mean, back during the fight with the first, she took to it. She was there every day doing research, helping...you remember me at that age? I used any excuse I could to get off Slay duty. It took me years to come to terms with that crap. She does it like, instantly. I thought she'd, you know, grown up. Now here she is giving me all this sassitude over something she clearly knows is for the best…"

Willow smiled. "Done?"

"Pfft. For now...ish...maybe..."

"As Dawn-related rants go, that one was kinda weak."

"Oh just you wait, I sense a big one on the horizon."

"She'll be fine, Buffy. She's just cranky and anxious. We all are."

Buffy slumped sitting onto her bed. "Yeah, well...months on the road will do that."

Willow took a seat on Dawn's bed across from her. "Is that why you wanna do this? Put down some stakes in this Smallville place, pun intended?"

Buffy looked at her oldest friend and shrugged. "I don't know, maybe. It's just,we can't keep this up. The situation now is…"

"Untenable?"

"Yeah, untenable. Totally ten-free. You couldn't ten it if you wanted to."

"I get that...but why this place?"

Buffy shrugged again. "I guess it's like I told Dawn, if you start making excuses it'll be that much harder. I called Giles and asked him to look into the place. Apparently it was on the Council radar. A footnote, but it was there. Strange things keep happening there, violent things."

Willow raised an eyebrow. "Hellmouth-y things?"

"Giles says no, in fact the Council couldn't find any evidence of any demon-y or magical activity in the area. Still, weird stuff. It could be good, as a base. I can't train the new Slayers effectively on the road. We need a headquarters. All the best secret crime fighters have one. It's close to Metropolis, and you know big cities like that always have creepy-crawlies hanging around in the shadows...and Dawn needs to go back to school. Do something other than...this."

Willow frowned. "I don't know Buffy, seems rather sudden for you to decide to move to some town in the middle of nowhere that you know nothing about."

"What?" Buffy was taken aback. "Willow, what do you mean 'move there', I'm not saying we should move there."

Willow blinked. "Wait, you're not?"

"No, of course not. What are you nuts? It'd just be for like a year-ish so Dawn can finish up a grade and we can wait for Giles to reclaim enough Council assets for us to find an actual permanent spot."

Willow's mouth hung open in a silent 'o'.

"I told you guys that...didn't I?"

Willow shook her head."

Buffy groaned and buried her face in her hands. Then she got up and trotted out the door. "Dawn!"

* * *

Xander Harris stared at the ceiling.

 _Thwump. Thwump. Thwump._

His hotel room's fan slowly turned there.

 _Thwump. Thwump. Thwump._

The blinds were shut, but insistent shafts of sunlight were worming their way through the cracks. It would be time soon. He'd need to show his brave face. For his friends. For the new Slayers, scared and confused.

Soon. But not quite yet. There was still a little bit of time. To watch the ceiling fan. Wonder if it'd turn that way forever. How nice that must be. Forever.

His hands crumpled the fabric of the red comforter. He was dressed, the bed was made. He'd been doing that since the time he was possessed by a soldier who had never really existed. Bits remained.

Nothing complicated- the clothes that is. Khakis, a white undershirt, denim jacket. Very workmanlike. Very-

Xander put the knuckle of one thumb into his mouth. He bit down hard. Harder. Harder. Harder.

To distract himself from the pain.

He stopped before drawing blood. He wanted a drink. He wanted a thousand. But he couldn't here, with his friends all around. They'd notice. They'd worry.

" _They say alcoholism is genetic, you know?"_ Once upon a time, Any- _don't say her name!_

Once upon a time a woman had said that to him. Xander thought of his lush father, wondered where he was. Briefly. Xander and Willow's family had evacuated towards the end of the fight with the First, before the town collapsed.

Willow had gotten in touch with her mother. Xander hadn't bothered. He was already with his family.

It was about that time.

Xander got up, straightened out the sheets, opened the door. Sunny morning in washington. He put his smile on.

The bees were a-buzzing. Was bees right? Worker bees were all male right? These were female bees. The young Potential Slayers, potential realised.

There were the survivors who'd escaped Sunnydale, like Kennedy and Vi, supervising the others, the newest ones they'd spent the past several months picking up all over the country. Giles had even sent them a few international charges when he could.

The little army had taken over the motel in the middle of nowhere, Washington. Xander wondered what the owner thought of them.

They rushed back and forth, getting ready for the next great excursion. Supposedly Queen B-for-Buffy had something big planned for this one.

Xander slid through the frenetic girls. He smiled where he needed to, offered encouragement to the nervous, and joked with the overly excited. By that strange particular magic of acting like a happy man, Xander slowly started to feel like it might be true.

So he walked into Buffy's room/command center with a smile just genuine enough that he'd maybe even fool Willow when he saw her.

"So, Buffster," he said, "What's the plan exactly."

"Mornin', Xander." Buffy grinned her brilliant grin before nodding. The stance of authority was coming to her more and more naturally. She probably didn't even realise she when she was doing it anymore.

Xander felt a rush of warm affection for her, one of his closest friends.

"So, here's how it goes. Willow thinks she's id'd a Slayer out in this Kansas town of 'Tinyburg'. I think we can all agree that this time on the road constantly is getting to us-"

"-yeah, my adolescent dreams of traveling the world on a bus of hot girls did not develop like this."

Buffy rolled her eyes at him. "Anyway, we all need some solid ground under our feet for a change. We'll be moving in. Willow's already found us a place, a farmhouse near the edge of town. Close enough to the action, but far enough away we don't need to worry too much about the locals doing the nosy neighbor thing."

Xander raised an eyebrow. "Action?"

"Oh yeah, this place is almost Sunnydale level weird. And even before you ask, nope, no Hellmouth...at least as far as anyone knows."

Xander whistled. "You sure know the best vacation spots, Buff."

"It'll be a good place to train, we can investigate the weirdness, Metropolis is nearby, and I won't have to strangle Dawn for using all the hot water. Points all around."

"Like you're one to talk!"

Xander started. He hadn't seen Dawn until she poked her head up from behind the other side of her bed where she was stuffing way too many clothes into a bulging suitcase.

"I walked into that bathroom once after her _highness_ here had texmex and that bathroom was totally-"

"-anyway, Willow said her weird computer thing found someone at the local high school, but nothing more specific. We tried a spell, it fizzled. Dawn will be enrolling in the school as our undercover agent to find the girl."

Xander saw Dawn's back unconsciously straighten at the words "undercover agent" and he norted. "How big is this place? Can it hold all of us?"

Buffy shook her head. "We're breaking up the band. We're taking some of the newbies, we're sending some of them to Faith and Robin in Cleveland."

Xander didn't need to ask why, if Buffy needed a homebase for a while, she didn't join Faith on the Cleveland Hellmouth. He knew why. Some wounds heal more slowly than others.

"And what about the others being activated?"

Buffy grimaced. "Well...I've uh...I've decided that in light of his contribution and genuine guilty feely-ness…"

Xander's jaw dropped. "No. Please tell me you're not sending _Andrew_ to be our primary recruiter!"

"He's, astoundingly, actually done pretty well with his self proclaimed job as 'Slayer PR'." Buffy shrugged helplessly. "And besides, if I have to keep him around, he'd gonna wake up one day with a stake in his mouth. Dem's the facts. Plus, I'm not sending him alone. I'm sending some of the more experienced girls with him, like Kennedy."

Xander sighed. "Yeah, you're probably right."

Xander felt a little relieved. It hadn't been the easiest thing, Andrew being there, reminding him all the time of whom had died to save the boy's life.

Andrew was also the most annoying person Xander knew...but also the only other guy Xander had spent any time with in months. It was a strange feeling.

"You have breakfast yet?" Buffy asked.

Xander shook his head.

"Well go ahead, then come find me. Lots to do to get ready to mobilize."

She'd still drop some military lingo she'd picked up from Riley. It no longer seemed to stick in her throat the way it used too.

Some wounds heal more quickly than others.

Xander nodded and Buffy walked around him, out to command her troops. Dawn got up and followed after her, stopping by Xander. She smiled and hugged him.

"Feeling okay?"

Xander scratched under the band of his eyepatch.

"Of course I am," he said.

She pulled away and left the room.

 _Of course I am._

Xander turned and left. Lots to do. They had a long way to go ahead of them.

* * *

 _A week later..._

 _Guess summer's over,_ Dawn thought as she squeezed through students bustling down the halls of Smallville High. Eyes kept turning to her, the unknown, the intruder. She remembered this feeling from when she first moved to Sunnydale. Didn't miss it.

She clutched her binders a little tighter to her chest, her shoulders hunching up. She could hear the whispering behind her. It would follow her for days, until something else diverted everyone's attention. She would just need to survive for a few more days.

The principal, an african-american grey hair who she was trailing, that walked like he should be carrying a scepter in one hand and a whip in the other, stopped in front of a room that looked like a computer lab. There was a blonde girl with a short bob cut typing on a desk like her fingers were trying to run off her hands.

"Miss Sullivan," the principal said.

 _Taptaptaptaptap_

Dawn saw the principle take a deep breath and almost roll his eyes. This was a common occurrence then.

"Miss Sullivan!"

Blonde Bob-cut jumped in her seat and turned around. She was very pretty, shimmery in the lip gloss area.

"Principal Reynolds…" her eyes met Dawn's and Blond Bob-cut raised an eyebrow.

"Miss Sullivan," the Principal continued, "this is Dawn Summers. She recently transferred in and I would like you to serve as her guide to Smallville High, her ambassador of sorts."

Dawn couldn't shake the feeling she was being handed off like a regifted candle.

Blonde Bob-cut's mouth opened to form some kind of protest, she glanced back to the text document she was working on. Then she sighed in resignation.

"Yeah," she said, "okay."

"Excellent. Do be sure to show her some of that small town charm we're famous for." The Principal grinned like something was funny, turned with military precision, and marched down the hallway, parting the Red Sea of students.

Blonde Bob-cut gave her project another forlorn look before saving it and closing it out. Then she sprang out of her chair and strode over to Dawn, hand thrust out and a bright smile on her face.

"Hey, I'm Chloe Sullivan."

Dawn took her hand and was pulled along for an enthusiastic shake.

 _Smile, smile…_

Dawn smiled.

 _See? That wasn't so bad, you remember some of this whole 'making friends' thing after all, and she seems nice enough at least. Maybe a little too enthusiastic…_

"So," Chloe said, "welcome to Smallville. Where are you from?"

"California."

Chloe's eye grew wide. "Whoa, really? A genuine California Girl in our little hamlet. Where in Cali?"

"Los Angeles." That had been the agreed on story. The Scoobies thought it was probably best not to mention Sunnydale if it could be avoided. Being from the town that was now a crater was sure to call attention. Besides, it wasn't even a lie. Dawn and Buffy _had_ lived in L.A. first.

Chloe whistled. "You're basically from another planet. Now I pretty much _have_ to look out for you, one big city gal to another."

Dawn perked up a bit. This wasn't so hard. She even found Chloe's electric smile was spreading to her. "Oh, where are you from?"

"Metropolis. Not so far as L.A., but…"

"Wow, really? 'The City of Tomorrow'. I've always wanted to go."

Chloe shrugged. "It _is_ pretty cool. And it's close by. You'll definitely get a chance to see it...in fact, if after spending the day with me you decide you're not sick of my babbling, I'll definitely take you over there. Show you all the best malls."

Dawn felt the ball of tension she'd been holding in her chest unwind. "That'd be great."

Maybe this year wouldn't be a total disaster after all.

Dawn spent the day with Chloe, who it seemed had been given special permission to cut class as Transfer Student Ambassador.

"So, Dawn, welcome to 'Apple Pie, USA', to quote a friend of mine. It's like everyone's favorite bar where 'everybody knows your name' or they will soon, anyway. Not gonna lie, there's not a lot to do around here. Smallville High is the only school in town, and is basically the center of anything that could be called 'cultural' in this seemingly quiet backwater holdover from a 1950s black and white tv commercial. So the Jocks and the Cheerleaders have an over inflated sense of importance-"

Dawn snickered. "What else is new?"

Chloe grinned. "I can see now our meeting was written in the stars. But trust me, however bad you think you had it in the city, it's way worse out here. Since the school is the center of all local sporting events and social attention, and most of the families that live here have generations of history with the school, the ball players and their pom-pom waving bimbos are really big fish in a really small pond."

Chloe stopped in the hallway they were walking down, a frown tugging the corner of her lips. "Sorry, I'm editorializing a bit too much. They're not all bad…take everything I say with a grain of salt, okay?"

Dawn nodded, then on an instinct, asked, "did you ever try out for cheerleading?"

Chloe grew rigid. "...there was a moment of temporary insanity that I will never speak of again to you or anyone even under threat of torture and let's leave it at that."

Dawn laughed. She remembered her own 'moment of insanity' all too well. Even thinking back to the things she did under the spell of RJ's enchanted letterman jacket made her want to jump into a deep hole with a pocketful of grenades.

"Now that," a male voice said from behind them, "is a funny story."

Chloe's already brilliant smile grew so much brighter Dawn thought it might pop like an overtaxed light bulb as she turned around.

"Dawn Summers, meet Clark Kent."


	3. Chapter 3

_"Something's here..." - Willow Rosenberg_

* * *

"Hi," Dawn said, managing a shy smile. "I'm Dawn, Dawn Summers."

Clark's thumb scratched the side of his nose as he smiled. "Yeah, I know...sorry, news kinda travels fast around here."

"Heh. So Chloe was telling me." Dawn noticed the thick book he had in one hand.

Clark turned to Chloe. "So, the Principal roped you into being Dawn's tour guide for the day?"

"Yep," Chloe said.

Clark turned back to Dawn with a grimace. "My condolences."

 _Thwap_. Chloe punched him in the arm. "You jerk."

"Has she bombarded you with personal questions yet?"

Dawn blinked. "No...I mean, nothing outside the usual stuff I think?"

"Well, when she does, you'll have to forgive her. She's a journalist down to the marrow."

Dawn stiffened.

Chloe scowled at him. "And you'll have to forgive Clark. He has no manners, ya know, 'cause-"

"-I was raised in a barn?"

Chloe stuck her tongue out at him.

Clark smirked. "You didn't let me finish. I was saying that you'll _have_ to forgive her crazy journalistic bloodhound ways because Chloe is basically one of the best people you can know. She's always willing to help people in need, she's smart, diligent, dedicated, and-"

 _Thwap._ Another punch to the shoulder. Dawn could see Chloe's ears burning red.

"-and," Clark continued, ignoring the punch "there's no one you'd rather have in your corner when things are going rough, or anyone who's more fun to have around when things are going smooth."

Dawn whistled. "Wow. Rave review."

"Ignore him," Chloe said, the red having spread from her ears to most of her face. "He's a doofus."

"Guilty. Still right though. So, Dawn, how're you finding Smallville so far?"

"Well...I mean, I only just got here like last night so I um...it's very- that is, it has a lot of...it's very majestic."

Chloe smirked. "Majestic here being a synonym for 'completely and totally empty'?"

Dawn tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "Well, now that you mention it…"

Clark chuckled. "Yeah, welcome to rural Kansas. It's basically fields on fields on fields on fields."

Chloe turned to Clark. "Hey, you've got free period now right? Help me show the new kid around."

Dawn saw Clark glance at the book in his hand. It was a dictionary, she realized, french to english.

"Well," he said, "sure, why not? If I just leave you alone with Chloe you're gonna come away with all sorts of weird ideas about the town. I'll provide a stabilizing counterpoint."

Chloe stuck her tongue out at him again.

Dawn blinked. "Weird ideas? What kind of weird ideas?"

It seemed to her that Clark's smile grew strained. Chloe on the other hand, became ecstatic. She opened her mouth to speak, but Clark cut her off.

"Oh, you know...Chloe's from the big city, so she tends to talk about this place like it's a 1950's black and white commercial."

Next thing Dawn knew, Clark was guiding them down the hall.

 _These are nice, normal people,_ she thought _...and I really kinda hope Chloe is the new Slayer._

Then Dawn felt guilty. If her new friend was the Slayer, it would probably ruin the girl's life, Dawn shouldn't wish that fate on anyone.

The thought brought her back on track. She really wasn't here to make friends. If what Buffy said was true and they wouldn't be staying long she couldn't get too close or it would suck all the worse when she left. She really just had to keep her head down, finish class, and find the new Slayer.

The two were trading the rapid fire banter that came with old familiarity, walking side by side. Dawn let herself slow, just enough to fall a bit behind them.

* * *

Students rushed out of classrooms and thronged the hallways.

Clark fell into step with Pete as they both walked toward their next class.

"Pete."

"Clark."

"Plans for lunch?"

"Oh, you know, I hear the cafeteria is serving it, so I was planning on maybe eating it."

"Not bad as plans go, I have similar plans myself. Join me?"

"You mean like I usually do?"

"Yep. Also Chloe."

"Again, all within standard operating procedure."

Clark took a sudden turn and Pete followed, frowning. The two ducked down another hallway, exited a set of double doors, and walked across a field to a spot behind the bleachers.

"Also," Clark said, "one other person."

Pete raised an eyebrow. "Who?"

"Dawn Summers."

The other eyebrow went up. "Whaaaat? The new girl who moved into the Shirley House?"

Clark frowned. "She moved into Shirley House? That's a big place."

"Maybe she's money. I hear she's from Hollywood-"

"-somewhere in L.A. apparently."

Pete smirked. "You met her already?"

"Chloe's been appointed her tour guide, I met them in the hall."

"She as cute as they say?"

"Cuter."

Pete's smirk grew wider. "Excellent."

Clark rolled his eyes. "She's been here twelve seconds Pete, giver her some time to settle in before you try and jump her."

"Ok, I'll give her a Metropolis Minute...which is about six seconds."

"Pete, seriously. She's a long way from home, probably bummed, she doesn't know anyone, is also maybe evil, and I don't know if you should get so pushy with it."

"Clark, listen, the secret to victory in love and war is spee- wait...what?"

"I just don't think you should be so-"

Pete rolled his eyes. "You know what I meant, Clark."

Clark nodded and his levity died down. His eyes swept out over the playing field. Pete's own demeanor became serious in response.

Clark shrugged. "I don't know. It's just weird right? A week ago a vampire, then now suddenly this girl shows up."

"You're thinking they're related?"

Clark shrugged.

"But this girl can't be a vampire, right? I mean, you saw her walking around and it's the middle of the day. You said the other guy burst into flames, so you know vampires can't take sunlight."

"No," Clark said, "what I know is that one particular vampire couldn't take sunlight, which fits the lore. But I can't be confident of anything from a sample size of one, and the sources I have are hardly what Chloe would term credible. Besides, she wouldn't need to be a vampire. You ever read Dracula?"

"Only if 'read' here is a synonym for 'saw a movie once'."

"Remember Renfield?"

Pete nodded. "Dracula's daytime human lackey right? That's what you think this girl is?"

"I don't think anything. I'm just saying...it's odd right?"

Pete shrugged. "Maybe. Maybe not. Coincidences _do_ happen, Clark."

Clark snorted. "To other people they might. To me? I can usually just assume the worst case scenario."

"So, what are you gonna do?"

"Only thing I can do. I'm going to keep a close eye on Dawn Summers for a while."

Pete smirked, "yeah, big sacrifice there."

Clark rolled his eyes again. "Honestly, Pete. You haven't even seen the girl and you're getting all geared up."

Pete shrugged. "I haven't ever seen Ms. Angelica Blaze, Metropolis' Angel of the Night either, I'd get geared up for her in a second based on her sultry velvet voice alone."

"I saw her once, at a party with Lex."

"She as hot as she sounds on the radio?"

"Hotter."

Pete sighed with longing.

"Ok, let's focus up. You said she moved into Shirley House, how did you know that?"

"Ann Temple's mom sold them the place."

"Them? Dawn's family?"

"Her sister, apparently. Her sister and _some other woman_."

Pete was smirking again but Clark ignored it. "Uh-huh. What else do you know."

Pete shrugged. "Sorry bro, that's all I got. I just overheard Anne talking as I passed by. You gonna have Chloe run background?"

Clark stared out into the distance. His powerful eyes could clearly make out the edge of the corn fields so far away. He watched the stalks sway like emerald waves in the prairie wind.

"No," he said. "Her and Dawn...they're getting along really well. I don't wanna...I don't know, poison it? If I'm wrong and I tell Chloe to start investigating her friend, Chloe's going to get suspicious of her. Or she's gonna uncover something about Dawn and Dawn will find out and...there's no need to start a whole thing yet."

Pete smiled and shook his head. "You know, Chloe's a big girl right? She can handle herself."

"I know...it's just...you notice Chloe's been here almost four years now and her only friends are still you, me, and Lana right?"

"Clark, _you've_ been here _fourteen_ years and _your_ only friends are me, Lana, and Chloe."

"Okay, A, I have Lex-"

"-don't remind me-"

"-and _B,_ that's a different situation."

"Only literally. Chloe likes her outsider status, Clark. She's fine with it."

Clark moved a few stray hairs out of his face as the wind blew them about. "Is she? I'm not always okay with mine. Sometimes I think I only accept it because I've had to live with it so long."

Pete looked at him, but Clark kept his eyes on the horizon.

"Maybe," Pete said, "but you're not Chloe's mom, Clark. You don't need to be worrying if she's making friends at school. Just be hers."

"Yeah, you're probably right."

"Duh."

"...it's just, if something happens to me...I wanna know you guys will be okay."

Pete frowned. "Whoa, what does that mean?"

Clark shrugged. "Nothing, just saying."

"Clark, nothing's gonna happen to you. You're literally invincible. This vampire thing is freaky, but so is all the other stuff we see like every other week. You'll figure it out, you'll beat the bad guy, and we'll all go home. Lemon Squeezy."

"When you're young, you think you're invincible."

"Huh?"

"Nothing, nevermind. Let's just move past it okay?"

Pete put his hands up. "Fine, fine. What's going on with the other thing?"

Clark tapped the dictionary in his hand with his thumb. "It goes slowly. The journal was definitely written in some kind of archaic french. Most of it anyway. I've picked up a basic fluency-"

"-in a week, you god damn unfair alien bastard."

Clark grinned. "I said it's still only a _basic_ fluency. The old dialect and the fact that the author might also be a bit insane in the membrane don't help."

"Well what do you have so far?"

Clark shrugged. "He was definitely looking for something, and has been for a while, but he's always annoyingly vague about what. But his fanaticism...whatever it is he's looking for, it's something that compels his reverence. I also repeatedly translated something called 'The Eye'. I bet my boxed lunch it's the weird rock I found-"

"-I'm just happy a weird glowy rock you found didn't kill you or turn you evil for once.

"Here, here. Still don't know what this 'Eye' is supposed to be for though. I have also found repeated references to someone he calls 'Master' and a 'Brotherhood'."

Pete shivered. "That's never a good sign."

"Yeah, this vampire probably had friends, and they're probably going to come looking for him eventually."

"What are you going to do when they come?"

Clark looked away and shrugged.

Pete stared at his friend. "Clark, they're monsters."

"What does that mean, really? I only ever met one of them, and then only briefly."

"Yeah, but that one tried to eat you, and only because you thwarted his plan to eat Lana."

"True. But like I said, not much you can tell from a sample size of one. Maybe they don't all eat people. Or if they do, do they _have_ to eat people? Is it right for me to kill someone based on a biological function they can't fight?"

"When an animal gets rabies we have to put it down."

Clark frowned and continued staring into the distance.

Pete sighed. "Well, in the end, I guess it's your decision. Do what you want, run as many tests as you think you need to, ask them any question you think will help...but Clark, I don't think there's a solution here that doesn't end in blood for someone. If monsters keep coming to Smallville, you're the only one who can do anything about it."

"We're gonna be late for class again."

"Which is your fault."

They started moving. Before walking back in, Pete said, "Hey. I noticed you were worried about something happening to _you_ , but not to any of us."

Clark's hands closed on the cold metal of the door handle. "Well that's easy Pete. I just would never allow anything to happen to you guys. Even if it did I'd undo it somehow. I'd run around the earth so fast the planet would spin backwards and I'd go back and time to save you all."

Pete blinked. They stared at each other.

"What?"

"Yeah, that doesn't actually make any sense does it? Nevermind, forget I said it."

They opened the door and walked in.

"By the way," Clark said "I'm coming in the night for my copy of _Is This It_. Be ready for that."

Pete snorted. "My mom's a Judge, Clark. You'd be locked away for eternity."

"Pete, please, I'm your mom's favorite child."

"Ugh, I hate that you're probably kinda right about that."

"It's 'cause I actually have manners."

"You excited for _Room on Fire_?"

"Am I excited? Am _I_ excited? I can't believe you just asked me that…"

* * *

Willow walked into Buffy's new room, bare but for the bed and the boxes. "There's something here."

Buffy looked up from a framed photo of herself, her mother, and Dawn on a Los Angeles beach. The one that had, technically, never been taken. "Is it the moving truck with the SiT's things?"

Willow shook her head, looking grave. "No. I mean there's something in this town."

Buffy sighed. "Yeah, I figured. Like I said, weirdness abounds. But the Council said they didn't find a Hellmouth or anything supernatural."

"Yeah, bunch of snotty tweed jerks thinking they know better than everybody else when, per usual, they're the ones goofing up." Willow's cheeks puffed out the way they did when she was irritated.

Buffy raised a grave eyebrow, trying not to choke on her laughter. "You found something supernatural while looking for our new Slayer?"

Willow shook her head. "No, I found nothing."

Buffy stared at her friend, whose solemn expression clearly seemed to be indicating Buffy should be understanding something here that she was definitely missing. "So...you found nothing...and that's bad because…"

"Yeah, I found nothing at all, as in no trace of anything supernatural. That doesn't happen, ever. Magic runs through the whole of the world, Buffy. Something supernatural happens everywhere, or has happened at some point. The idiots on the council didn't even think about it."

Buffy frowned, trying to sort through the significance. "So, if you're telling me that you can't find _anything_ , then it must be because-"

"-someone or something is hiding it. And they're doing it very well. Buffy, if this is some kind of cloaking spell, I may not be powerful enough to penetrate it."

Now Buffy's eyes grew wide. She felt a cold hand on the back of her neck. Willow was the most powerful witch she knew, quite possibly one of the most powerful in the world. If _she_ didn't have the power to get past this spell…and if someone was strong enough to hide something from Willow, the secret they were hiding had to be something big.

Buffy turned and walked to one of her new large windows that looked out over windswept fields. One of the reasons she'd chosen the house, it's position on top of the highest hill in the area gave it good command of the surrounding terrain.

The grasses stirred in the wind and Buffy was struck by the odd fancy that a thousand tiny things were moving down there, hidden in the grass, coming for her. Coming for her family and her Slayers.

"What do you want to do, Buff?"

"Keep doing what you can about the cloaking spell or whatever-"

"-technically we'd probably call it a shrouding spell-"

"-fine. See if you can get past it. I don't wanna get blindsided by something. The SiT's are getting in tonight, so tomorrow I'll have them get to work on research. Maybe this spell can hide the town's supernatural thumbprint, but I'm sure we can find some clues recorded in good old fashioned print media."

Willow nodded, then smiled. "Don't worry, Buffy, we'll figure it out. We always do."

Buffy nodded. "Yep, we always do."

 _Until the day we don't._

Xander walked in. "There's a pickup coming up the driveway."

Buffy raised an eyebrow and left the room, the other two walked in tandem behind her.

They made it to the front door just as someone knocked. Buffy felt that old Sunnydale Paranoia crawling up her skin. It was the middle of the day, and as far as she knew no one here knew them. So, what could these people be up to?

Buffy motioned for Xander and Willow to take up positions to either side of the door. When they were in place she opened the door and was met by two middle-aged brunette women.

"Hello," the shorter of the pair greeted with a warm smile and a cardboard box tucked under her arm. "My name is Martha Kent, this is my friend Nell Potter. We're pretty much your neighbors insofar as you guys have any neighbors out here in the middle of nowhere."

Martha stretched out her unoccupied hand and Buffy blinked at it like she'd just discovered a wild snake trying to disguise itself. Then Buffy flushed with shame as she reached out and shook the woman's hand.

Old habits did seem to die hard afterall.

"Hi, yeah, sorry. I'm Buffy Summers."

"May we come in?"

Buffy froze. She swore she heard Xander and Willow to either side holding their breath. Without answering, Buffy stood aside.

Martha kept smiling and stepped in, but Buffy noticed the other one, Nell, narrow her eyes at Buffy.

Buffy wanted to bury her face from embarrassment. She knew her mom would be disappointed in her rudeness, but safety trumped manners.

Martha turned to Xander. "Hello there."

Buffy closed the door. "Sorry, these two are my friends, Xander Harris and Willow Rosenberg."

They introduced themselves, Willow with her standard Willow enthusiasm, Xander was more reserved. Buffy knew how he felt, despite being a small town of sorts, Sunnydale had none of the rumored 'small town hospitality'. Buffy figured that's what they were seeing now.

"And they are?" Nell Potter said, speaking up for the first time.

"Friends of mine," Buffy replied.

She saw Nell Potter's eyes narrow and she recognized the look of judgement the woman had probably perfected being the town's local Cordelia in her youth.

Martha held out the box she was carrying. "We brought you guys a housewarming gift. It's my very own rhubarb pie, baked fresh from home. I don't like to brag, but I'm kinda famous for them."

Buffy saw Xander's eyes lit up and resisted the urge to roll her own. Then Martha Kent opened the top of the box and an indescribably warm and delicious smell drifted into the room.

Buffy could feel her mouth watering as she took the pie and saw it's light, flaky crust. She could practically imagine the crunch right at that moment.

"Wow, Mrs. Kent, this looks amazing. Thank you."

Martha Kent smiled at Buffy. She knew that smile. It was the smile of a professional mom. Her own mother had worn it often enough.

"Don't like rhubarb?" Martha Kent stared at her with soft, warm eyes that seemed to see right through her, sensing something amiss.

Buffy shook her head. "It's great, Mrs. Kent. Really, thank you for bringing this out. It's very nice of you."

Buffy walked to the large kitchen to set the pie on the counter.

"So," Nell said, "you lot seem a little young to be able to afford Shirley House."

"Nell!"

Buffy smiled at Nell's piercing glance. If the woman seemed to have decided not to like Buffy, then that was her problem.

"It's not personal funds, I'm starting an organization. It's weird for us too. Never been in a place with wings before."

Martha's eyebrow rose. "Really, what kind of organization?"

"An organization dedicated to helping young women with unique talents."

"Interesting. Like a school?"

"Well, sort of. It's more like an opportunities program."

Xander smirked. "We're thinking of calling it the 'Summers School for Gifted Young Women'."

Buffy rolled her eye, but Martha Kent smirked.

"Well," she said, looking at Buffy, "I think you could roll around in a wheelchair, but getting rid of the beautiful golden hair would be too tragic."

Xander's eye grew wide as a plate and Willow snickered at him into her cupped hands.

"But I must say," Martha said, "why are you basing your operation here? There's not much in the way of opportunities in Smallville."

Buffy smiled and shrugged. "Well, it'll probably be temporary, but there is a lot of opportunity in Metropolis, and out here we don't have to worry about the Metropolis property values."

Martha smiled. "True. Tell you what,I wholeheartedly approve of your endeavor. I assume you got the biggest house in town because you're going to be boarding girls here. Kent Farm makes some of the finest organic produce around, we'll wholesale it to you girls at a discount."

Buffy grinned. She liked this woman. "Really Mrs. Kent? That'd be great!"

It really would be. Giles was steadily reclaiming old council funds, but with the number of Slayers growing, she'd take any savings she could get.

The two women stuck around awhile and chatted with the trio. They asked the usual intro questions about where they were from, the Scoobies stuck to the L.A. story, and spoke a little about the town of Smallville.

When they got up to leave, Buffy saw Willow was more than a little starry-eyed around Mrs. Kent. Apparently the woman had been quite the radical in her youth and had marched on everything from Women's Lib to Vietnam. They'd gotten along great.

"Thanks again for the pie, Mrs. Kent," Xander said as he licked his fingers. "It was amazing."

It was.

Martha smiled. "Well if you liked it so much I'll be bringing more to the town hall meeting later this week if you want to come."

Nell groaned. "Don't even remind me about that latest bit of the Mayor's craziness."

Martha shrugged. "Well, I don't really approve of it either, and we plan to vote against it, but the man really is just trying to look after the town."

Nell looked at the trio. "Since you guys just moved here I don't think you'll be allowed to vote, and if you come I'm afraid you'll get a bad impression about us small town country folk and think we're a bunch of superstitious yahoos. If I were you, I'd stay away."

Buffy raised an eyebrow and looked at Martha. "Why? What's happening at Town Hall?"

Buffy saw the woman tense and her wide smile seemed strained for the first time. "Oh, nothing really. Just some local silliness. Well, we really should be-"

"-certain locals," Nell interupted, "have gotten it into their heads that the town of Smallville has a Ghost."

Buffy froze. She turned and locked eyes with Willow and Xander. She turned back to the two women. "A ghost you say?"

* * *

"This is what Clark gets upset about," Chloe said.

Dawn stared at the wall with wide eyes and prickled skin. Her tour with Chloe had ended here where it had begun. The computer lab-slash-editing room for the school newspaper.

Chloe's "office".

Here, Chloe had revealed her secret project, the Wall of Weird. Dawn scanned some of the newspaper clippings. Some seemed straight out of the _Inquirer_ , giant produce, mutated livestock, etc. Some though, some seemed right out of the Twilight Zone.

"Chloe…"

"I uh...I actually am now realizing that showing this to you on your very first day here was probably not a good idea. Damn...this is really what I get for not listening to Clark, again."

Dawn turned and saw Chloe staring at her. The girl who had been like a meteorite dragging Dawn behind her in its passage was staring at Dawn now with trembling, vulnerable eyes, biting her lower lip.

"Look, Dawn...I'm not...I'm not crazy…"

It felt like someone had grabbed hold of Dawn's heart and squeezed it tight. She knew exactly how the other girl was feeling right now. She promptly forgot the promise she made to herself hours ago not to get too involved.

"Chloe, don't worry. I believe you. Something strange is definitely happening here." Even Buffy figured that much.

Chloe's eyes widened in disbelief and Dawn smiled. If only she could tell Chloe about her own weirdness.

"What do you think is causing it?"

Chloe blinked. "Uh...it's the um...do you know about that big meteor shower we had all those years ago and I'm sorry but...did you say you believed me?"

"Heh, yeah. I guess I do."

"Wow...it's just...that's pretty much never happened ever."

Dawn shrugged. "Well, I guess I'm just open minded when it comes to stuff like this."

Chloe's eyes narrowed, and Dawn could feel the next question would be "why are you so cool with this?" so Dawn headed her off at the pass. "So, you were saying something about the meteor shower?"

"Right, I have this theory...and it's a little hard to test mind you, that the meteor shower is somehow responsible for all the weird stuff that happens around here."

Dawn frowned. "Really? The meteors? How would that work?"

"I- ugh, well okay, I don't really _know_ how it would work exactly. But it's too much to be a coincidence. Before the meteor shower, this town was a plain as a Wonder Bread sandwich. Post-meteor shower? Boom! Weirdness abounds. Plus, whenever anything strange happens, these things are _always_ around!"

Dawn turned and looked at the wall again, deep in thought. Meteors?

"I think the meteors are...changing people somehow, making them into...giving them strange abilities."

"Abilities?"

Chloe nodded. "Like a kid who became really strong and could control bugs, or the football coach from two years ago who could set fires with his mind…"

"And how would that work? How would a meteor give people supernatural powers?"

Chloe shrugged in frustration. "I don't know! Radiation?"

Dawn took a deep breath. "Okay...can you tell me everything, from the beginning?"

Chloe told her. When she was finished Dawn sat in one of the chairs, staring out the window.

"So, that's the gist of it."

Dawn blinked. "Wow."

Her mind was far away. She had to get home and tell Buffy. Not only did they have to prepare against demons, but also against these so called "Meteor Freaks". Buffy had said they knew something was odd about the town when they'd moved here, but Dawn wondered if her sister had guessed how much.

The place was practically another Sunnydale? Could there be another Hellmouth here? Or was Chloe right and these strange meteors were to blame. Could they do that?

Too many questions. She had to tell the others.

Dawn realised Chloe had been speaking to her again. She sat up. "Hm? Sorry, what?"

Chloe stared at her. "Nothing, nevermind. I get that it's a lot to take in. You ok?"

"Fine."

"Well...uh, listen...I hope all this stuff doesn't turn you off of Smallville and make you flee for the hills. I mean, that's probably a good idea, but…"

"Oh, don't worry. You won't be rid of me that easy."

Chloe's electric smile came back. "Cool. It's really cool that you're so cool about this. This town isn't all bad"

"Well, I don't think anywhere is...but if you don't mind me asking, what _are_ the good points for this town? Because I gotta say, murderous meteor mutants? So _not_ the brochure header."

Chloe blinked, opened her mouth, then closed it. "Um...well...the good points are...that the town...well the produce is...fresh?"

"Fresh produce?"

"Er, yeah."

"Well, clean living _is_ important."

A wicked grin suddenly formed on Chloe's face. "Also this town produces some excellent quality _beef_ if you catch my drift."

Dawn's eyes grew wide. "I'm not sure I do. Is this going to be something damaging to my innocence?"

Chloe snorted. "Really though, pretty much all the boys around here have to do a lot of manual labor. Call it a fringe benefit of rural living."

"Oh thank god, I thought it was just me. Like, you know how to a starving person, anything on the buffet table looks great? I thought because it'd been months since I'd seen a guy who wasn't a close family friend I was somehow hallucinating that everyone was much hotter than they actually were."

"Nope, not just you."

The both stared at each other and then burst into laughter.

"Seriously though," Chloe, said trying to regain control,"there isn't a whole lot to do around here. But like I promised, I'll take you around Metropolis come the weekend. That place has pretty much everything you could imagine."

"Thanks, that sounds swell."

The bell rang and Dawn looked up at the clock on the wall. "Holy Hufflepuff, day's already over. That went by quick."

"Trust me, when you start classes it'll feel like forever."

Dawn sighed and slumped back a little. "Yeah, I remember what that's like."

Dawn realized Chloe was smirking at her. "What?"

"Nothing."

"Chloe-"

Chloe snickered. "Holy Hufflepuff?"

"What? Not a Harry Potter fan?"

"Ehhh, it's okay I guess-"

Dawn gasped. "You heathen! I take it all back, you and I can never be friends."

Dawn jumped out of her seat, head high, and strode out. A few seconds later she strode back in. "So, uh...last stop on the tour?"

"You'd like to know where the buses are?"

"I'd like to know where the buses are."

The two walked out into the rush of eagerly escaping students and Dawn had the sudden urge to grab Chloe's hand lest she be swept away in the tide of adolescent bodies.

The two made it to the bus and took seats together in front of Clark and Pete, who Dawn had met earlier at lunch. She had apparently met everyone in their little gang except a girl named Lana Lang. Dawn turned around to face them and smiled. She'd liked Pete. He was a pretty funny guy.

"Howdy boys. You guys on this bus too?"

Pete nodded. "Yes ma'am. My house has what scientists call 'too many darn people' so only my older siblings have cars."

Next to Pete, Clark spoke up. "My parents need the truck pretty much day 'round for deliveries and such, though I have a driver's license and can use it when I need it."

Dawn looked at Chloe who scratched the side of her nose. "I uh...had a car…"

"Where is it now?"

"Wrapped around a tree."

Dawn's eyes widened.

"So, Dawn," Clark asked her. "If you don't mind me asking, did you get a ride to school today?"

"Yeah." Willow had driven her after Dawn had calmly informed Buffy that even though the sides of the roads were in some places empty for miles, Dawn had total faith in Buffy's ability to find something to crash into.

Dawn noticed Clark's eyes had narrowed slightly. "Is something wrong."

"No," he said, "but I get this feeling like you don't know."

"Know what?"

"You told us you're living into Shirley House, but Dawn, the bus doesn't go out that far."

Dawn got a bad feeling. "How far from the house is the last stop?"

Clark's eyes grew soft with sympathy. "About a mile and change."

Dawn groaned. "A mile? Are you joking? I'm going to have to walk a mile and back to the bust stop every day in the Kansas heat?"

"Sorry."

Dawn groaned again and buried her head into the faded brown leather of the seat.

"Do you at least know the way?"

Dawn looked back up. "Crap. No, I don't."

Clark scratched his chin. "Well, the others have stops before ours, but I'm going all the way to the last stop too. I can show you the way."

Dawn was about to refuse, but if she got lost out there trying to get home it would be a major drag. "Okay, thanks Clark."

The four chatted idly about random things as the bus plodded along, and Dawn hoped, fervently hoped, that her sister and the other Scoobies wouldn't do anything weird when she introduced them to her new friends.

* * *

Clark stepped off the bus after Dawn. They looked down a long stretch of road that went off into the horizon flanked by empty fields.

Dawn sighed. "Well, at least I won't lack for cardio?"

Clark smirked as they started walking. "Someone can't take you to the bus stop and drop you off?"

"Maybe they can take me in the morning, but come the afternoon, everyone's gonna be busy."

They chatted as they walked until they reached a fork in the road. Clark turned left and Dawn followed. The terrain got hillier and soon Dawn saw her new house atop one of the taller hills.

"That's me!" She jumped and pointed. "Jeeze that place is huge. I don't think I'll ever get used to it...hey, it wasn't like a plantation or anything right?"

"Nah, nothing like that."

"Whew, that's good. I don't know that I could take living in an old slave owner's house."

The two walked up to the front door, Dawn was sweating and her breath was ragged. She turned to Clark.

"Boy you are stone cold calm in this heat huh? Which, by the way, so not expecting."

"I work in the elements a lot, and aren't you from California?"

"Yeah, but we have trees and things there to provide shade. I wasn't expecting Kansas to be so hot." Dawn knocked on the door.

Clark heard light feet moving through the house. They stopped in front of the door and looked out at Clark and Dawn through the door's peephole before opening.

"Hey Dawn." A short blonde woman of early twenty-something stood in the doorway, smiling and trying to hide her tension. "Who's your friend?"

"Buffy," Dawn said, "this is Clark Kent. He helped show me the way home, you know, since the last bus stop is still _a mile away…_ "

Buffy stopped eyeing Clark and turned to Dawn, her eyes wide. "What?"

Dawn crossed her arms, cocked her head, and raised one eyebrow with the savagery of a tiger mauling.

Buffy closed her eyes and buried half her face in her hand. "Oh, Dawnie...sorry, that one's on me."

Dawn smirked. "Yup. Totally on you. There will be reparations. Speaking of, this place, not a slave house."

Dawn walked in.

"Well there's that," Buffy said. They both turned when they noticed Clark was still standing outside. They looked at each other and back at Clark.

"Well," Buffy said, "come in if you're gonna."

Clark raised an eyebrow at that but stepped in. Then he remembered another bit of lore. Vampires could only enter a house once invited. He felt a chill crawl over him.

"Thank you," Clark said, "and welcome to town."

Buffy nodded, managing to smile a little more. "Kent, right? Any relation to Martha Kent?"

"She's my mom, and I take it she's already been through with her famous pie?"

Dawn's eyes widened and she whirled on her sister. "There's pie?"

"...there _was_ pie. But you know how Xander is."

"Hey!" A tall dark haired man with an eyepatch walked into the room. "You and Willow ate as much of that pie as I did! Hey, Dawn."

"Hey Xander. Xander, this is Clark Kent, Clark this is Xander Harris."

They nodded and shook hands, Xander giving Clark and assessing look and applying subtle pressure to his grip that Clark chose to ignore.

 _Okay,_ Clark thought, _these people are definitely up to no good._

He heard another set of feet and purposely didn't turn in their direction when another woman with saffron hair walked in. "We doing greetings again?"

Dawn grinned, ran over and hugged the newcomer. "Willow this is Clark, Clark, Willow"

Clark nodded.

"Well," Buffy said, "thanks for helping Dawn out, Clark. I had no idea about the bus thing. We're still getting settled in."

"Happy to help. I've never actually been in here before."

Clark looked around the foyer. The world changed color as he shifted into X-ray. His vision pushed through walls, doors, and floors. He found basically what you'd expect, boxes on boxes, on boxes.

And some strange things too. Old books in strange languages, and a wooden chest. Clark pushed further into this one and froze.

It was full of weapons. Axes, swords, a crossbow...was that a flail?

Clark snapped out of X-ray and kept his face carefully schooled.

"So," Buffy said, "uh if I learned anything from watching my mom for years I should offer to...I don't know, feed you or something?"

Clark smiled but shook his head. "Thanks, I appreciate it. But I've got to get home if I want to have any free time after chores."

"Well, I won't pretend I'm not secretly relieved because, to be honest, we kinda don't have anything."

"Wait," Dawn said, "how are you getting home? You can't really be expecting us to let you walk all the way back?"

Clark shrugged. "Hey, like I said, I'm totally used to it. It's fine. And it looks like you guys still have a lot of stuff to do, move wise."

Dawn frowned. "Well, if you're sure."

Clark nodded again. "Anyway, it was nice meeting you all."

Buffy waved at him as he left the house. "See you 'round. Oh, and thanks for being Dawn's friend!"

"Buffy!"

"There's no take-backs incase you want to trade her in later!"

" _Buffy!_ "

Dawn groaned as Clark smirked and closed the door behind him. "You're the worst sister ever."

Buffy blew her a kiss. "At least this time when I mortified you on your first day it was on purpose and not in front of the whole class."

"Just in front of a super cute guy," Willow chimed in.

"I'm fine with this," Xander added.

Buffy nodded. "Mom isn't here to mortify you through your awkward high school years. In honor of her I accept this solemn duty."

Dawn groaned again and stormed out. Then she stormed back in. "Don't think this in any way diminishes my exit but I came back here because I need to tell you guys something."

…

"Meteors, huh?" Willow chewed her lip in thought.

Dawn shrugged. "That's what Chloe thinks."

Xander perked up. "Can that happen. Can rocks from space use radiation to give you x-men type genetic mutations?"

Willow rolled her eyes at him. "If you found radioactive rocks from space I'd say the mutation they were most likely to give you is cancer."

"Could they be magic?" Buffy asked.

"Who knows, I'll need to get my hands on one."

"Plus we need to look into that 'ghost' thing."

Dawn raised an eyebrow. "Ghost?"

"Apparently some local yokels think the town might be haunted," Buffy said.

"Anything to it?"

"We don't know yet."

"I'll ask around at school, since I'm recon-ing anyway."

"Speaking of, any luck?"

"Dawn shook her head. "No indication of a new Slayer yet, the computer that pinged Willow's cyberworm-"

"-hey," Xander said, "There's the name. The Willow Worm."

Willow frowned. "Let's not and say we did please?"

"-anyway," Dawn continued, "the computer was a public computer in the computer lab that could have been used by anyone."

Buffy nodded. "Well, that's no problem. It's early...so, other than that, how was your first day?"

They talked and worked, unpacking and arranging and arguing and doing the thousand and one things families do together.

Just far enough away to remain unseen, Clark lay hidden in tall grass, eyes closed, perception focused on the sounds coming from the house on the hill.

* * *

The body of Chester Pennington, night shift receptionist of the Wayside Motel, hit the ground with a thud worthy of the man's bulk. A man screamed in one of the rooms, but was quickly silenced.

A lithe figure in a sable coat walked the hall of the motel flanked by her minions on either side. The figure glided to a door labeled Room 103. She stopped, sniffed the air, and opened the door.

She stepped inside and looked around. The place was empty to the eyes but the nose told a different story.

"This was it," she said. "Fletcher was here."

Another vampire approached, head low. "Elder Katarina, we've searched what remained of Adept Fletcher's things. We have found no sign of the Eye, and his personal journal is missing as well."

Katarina nodded. "Someone else has been here. I smell something, hay and animals and...a farm. How irksome. This state is just a carpet of farms."

She walked around the room in a slow spiral. "Well, no matter, I will find the one I'm looking for. Neophyte Jessica."

A darkly complected vampire woman knelt on the ground. Elder Katarina didn't bother looking at her. "Find us accommodations near the town. We must find the Eye and retrieve it for our Divine Master Koschei."

The vampire bowed and darted out of the room into the night.

Elder Katarina could smell the delicious copper of blood filling the air. "I take it you saved me the choice pieces?"

"Yes, Venerable Elder!"

She nodded, looking out the window into the starry Kansas night.

"Well, little hamlet of Smallville. I hope you're sleeping well tonight. Because the monsters are here at last."


	4. Chapter 4

_"The most popular name for it? They call it the Dust Storm Devil." - Clark Kent_

* * *

"They're monster hunters," Clark said as he opened the door to his living room.

His parents both looked up from the tv and turned on the couch toward him.

"Clark-" his dad said.

"-what are you talking about?" his mother concluded.

"The Summers sisters, and their friends Willow and Xander, not to mention all these girls in the house who rolled in a few hours ago, they're monster hunters. Actually, if I've got to be specific, they're Slayers."

Clark saw his father's eyes widen.

"Yep, just like in your story, dad."

His father's brow furrowed. "What does that mean? What is a Slayer?"

"And more importantly," his mother added, "how do you know this?"

Clark scratched an ear. "I may have been...you know, creeping around and listening in on them."

His mother snorted. "Okay, well I guess you'd better tell us everything you found out."

Clark nodded and walked over to the sofa. His parents slid to either side and he plopped himself down between them. "Basically what I have so far is that Buffy is a Slayer, some kind of mystical monster killer. So are a bunch of these girls her 'organization' is helping. But Buffy definitely seems like the head honcho. She gives the orders around there and trains all the others. Dawn and Xander don't appear to be Slayers, but also learn to fight monsters. The other one, Willow...this is gonna sound out there, but apparently she's a witch."

His father scoffed. "Of course she is. Vampires, Slayers, and now Witches. As if Smallville didn't have enough problems with just the meteor mutants. Now we're one evil carousel ride away from being that town in 'Something Wicked This Way Comes'. Clark, I want you to stay away from these girls as best you can, alright?"

Clark turned to look at his father. "Well...uh, maybe?"

"Maybe? What do you mean by 'maybe'?"

"Well, it's just...are we sure that's the best idea?"

"Clark, you just told me these girls hunt and kill monsters for a living. I'm not going to risk what will happen, what they'll try to do if the find out about _you_."

"I don't see how that's different from how I have to treat everyone else. Besides, they might have valuable information about this vampire that came into town and others that might come by. If anything, I need to get close-"

"-Clark, this is _not_ like everyone else! With other people you have the...the natural defense of disbelief. Most people don't really think there are aliens living among us. Something strange happens, they're quick to find some way to rationalize it. These people are different Clark, they'll be _looking_ for that kind of thing, odd events or behaviors."

"I can stay hidden, dad. I've had seventeen years of practice."

"Not enough to stay hidden from Pete, or even from Marsh Waeland."

Clark flinched. "That was...he's a detective. He's supposed to, you know...detect."

"He's not a detective-"

"-detective adjacent-"

"-and _furthermore_ government agents are _specifically_ the kinds of people we need to most fear will ever find out about you!"

Clark opened his mouth to retort, but then his jaw clamped shut. "Alright then. You've made your point."

Clark got up.

"Clark, where are you going, I'm still speaking to you!"

Clark was already at the stairs and climbing. He didn't like using super-speed in confined spaces like indoors. Mistakes could easily cause damage. But damn if he didn't feel the power trying to push on him, like the pressure of water that must exist behind the nozzle of a hose before it's opened.

"I'm going to take a shower," Clark said, "I've been laying in the grass for hours."

Clark's father rose. "Clark-"

Martha Kent's hand closed around her husband's wrist. He looked down and his face was red from the heat of an inner fire, but when he looked into her eyes he relented. He sank back down.

Martha continued to stare at him.

"What?" He couldn't meet her eyes.

"Jonathan," she said. One word.

Jonathan sighed. "I know. I'm sorry."

"I'm not the one you need to say that to."

He nodded. Then he leaned forward, his head falling into his hands. He rubbed his face and ran a hand through his hair. "He just needs to be more _careful_."

"No one in the world is more careful, Jonathan. But things happen. You know that."

Jonathan stared at the tv, registering nothing from the buzzing screen.

"And mistakes happen. It's exhausting, lying all the time. Especially lately, I know you noticed. Ever since this Vampire thing he's been on edge, paranoid, jumping at every shadow. Clark's used to monsters of a kind, something about this is bothering him in a way he hasn't spoken about yet, if he realizes it himself."

"I'm his father...I'm supposed to protect him. From evil. From monsters."

They were silent until Martha heard the rush of water from the shower upstairs. She leaned in close to her husband to whisper. You could never be sure when Clark was listening, but she prayed he wasn't now.

"He's beyond us, Jonathan. He has been for a while now." She gripped her husband's wrist as she clenched her teeth. "We can't protect him. I don't think there's anyone in the world that can protect Clark. I don't think anyone's that strong. That's not what he needs from us."

"What then? What does he need from us?"

"Our love, I think...and our support."

The corner of Jonathan's mouth twitched. "You think?"

Martha smirked and shrugged. "Well, what can I say. We're raising an alien. I don't know that there's a handbook."

* * *

Chaos.

Chaos upon waking.

Dawn peeled her eyes open at the sound of something ceramic shattering to a billion pieces somewhere downstairs.

She groaned and flipped the cover over her head. She tried to return to her lovely dream starring young Alec Baldwin in his sailor uniform from _The Hunt for Red October_ , but some things were too beautiful to last.

She rolled out of bed and started pushups as soon as she hit the floor. She glanced up at her clock as she did. The morning run started in five minutes.

The order in which they placed dictated the order in which they got to use the bathrooms.

Dawn jumped up and bent over her vanity to stare in the mirror.

 _Ready? This is it! So what if all your competitors have superhuman speed? You're not gonna let that stop you. You're Dawn Summers, you're gonna show those newbies that good old grit and determination is more important than super powers!_

Dawn jumped up and jogged out the door to take her place. She'd made the decision the year past when she'd told Buffy she wanted in. In on all of her sister's world, even the horror bits. That meant learning to fight monsters.

She would never be a Slayer, but she could be one of the new Watchers, and damn if she'd let the new Watchers become like the old ones, distant and cold, uninvolved in the fights of their Slayers.

 _No_ , Dawn thought as she took her place by some 20 other girls outside the house, she was going to be in it with the Slayers, mixing it up and supporting them. Powers be damned.

Naturally she lost the race, and collapsed onto the grass heaving and thankful she hadn't eaten anything.

A shadow fell over her and she didn't need to look up to know it was Buffy.

"That was your best time yet, Dawnie."

Dawn wheezed some more. "...damn...right...it...was…"

"You know you'll never actually be able to beat a Slayer in a foot race right?"

"I know...but aim for the stars right?"

Buffy snorted. "Get up and get ready for school."

"Yeah, I'm going."

Buffy walked away. "Pack an umbrella! They say it might rain today!"

Dawn continued laying face down in the grass. "I'll be right up...any second now."

The wait for the bathroom turned out not to be so bad, since the house had several. It was still a pain but nothing compared to the special hell it had been when they'd been roaming the country or even back at the old place in Sunnydale.

Dawn finished her breakfast amid the ruckus of the 20 new Slayers yammering over each other. They were some of the rawest recruits and Dawn didn't yet have any friends among them.

But Dawn brightened at the thought of the new friends she might have at school as she slipped on her shoes and backpack, said her goodbyes to her family and headed out the door.

She passed by Willow who was spilling out an arc of golden sand in front of the door that was obviously magical as indicated by its glitteryness. The arc was surrounded by several glyphs that seemed familiar to Dawn.

"Hey, this is that spell you put up around the Magic Box those years ago. You used it to detect Glory right? You said it's alert us if anything 'hellgodishly powerful came near' or something?"

Willow smirked. "Yup. Like I told Buffy, if someone's hiding all the supernatural events in Smallville, we're talking some heavy duty mojo. Can't hurt to cover the bases."

"I guess not." Dawn hugged WIllow goodbye and left. Today she would hopefully find the new Slayer and maybe even see if anyone at school knew more about this "ghost".

Legs still burning, she made the long walk to her bus stop under the relentless sun and found Clark already there as well, leaning against a long split rail fence.

"Hey, Clark!"

Clark turned and smiled at her.

 _Ugh,_ Dawn thought, _there's trouble._ It was the kind of smile that could make people go all melty in the knee area if they weren't careful.

"Why is it so hot out?"

"I'm sorry Miss Summers, I'll get someone right on that."

Daw stuck her tongue out at him and leaned against the fence herself, wiping sweat from her brow with a sleeve. Her hair was going to feel damp and gross now for hours.

"It'll get cooler soon," Clark said. "Maybe it'll get too cold for you to handle, Miss L.A. Maybe you'll be begging for the heat to come back."

"We can't all have your weird mutant powers of temperature-ignoring, Clark."

"Sure you can. Just jump in vat of super cold radioactive acid or something. Isn't that how it always works in comics?"

Dawn snorted and put a hand to her brow to shield her eyes from the glare of the sun and stare down the road.

"Say, Clark. Can I ask you something?"

Clark shrugged.

"Do you know anything about this 'ghost' people are talking about?"

Clark turned to her. Dawn wasn't sure, but it seemed to her he'd grown suddenly tense.

"Who told you about the ghost?"

"Oh, you know, I just hear things."

Clark shook his head. "It's nothing. Obviously ghosts don't exist. It's a hoax. It's one of those...what do you call 'em? Cryptids. Like the Mothman or the Jersey Devil or Bigfoot. Someone maybe sees something strange, or some kids play a prank, and someone tells a story. There's not a whole lot to do in a town this small, so pretty soon everyone's got their own story of the local whatever."

Dawn nodded. That was what a Normal like Clark would say. Dawn happened to know that the Mothman was definitely real, though the Council records of the Jersey Devil were a little sketchier.

"That sounds kinda cool," Dawn said. "I mean, back in L.A. I didn't really have anything like that, a local myth everyone knew. Can you...maybe tell me more about it?"

She thought she saw Clark frown for a split second, but if he had his face returned to warm in an instant.

"Why do you want to know?"

Dawn shrugged. "No real reason, just...you know, I like that kind of stuff. Local folklore and mythologies."

"Well," he said, "I never really paid attention to the specifics. You'd have to ask someone else...speak to Chloe. She keeps track of all the odd things in Smallville. She can tell you more, if you really want to know."

A swirl of dust on the horizon caught Dawn's eye. She could just barely make out the shape of the bus coming towards them.

Clark had a rueful grin on his face. "What I can tell you, is not everyone in town calls it a ghost."

Dawn quirked an eyebrow. "Really? What else do people think it is?"

"The most popular name for it? They call it the Dust Storm Devil."

Dawn felt a crawling sensation up her spine.

 _And suddenly I find myself really hoping it is just a rural legend._

As it turned out, Chloe _did_ know quite a bit about the Devil.

"Stories about it have been around for a while," she told Dawn during lunch. "I'd say at least a decade. "

 _Odd,_ Dawn thought. _Ten years isn't so long for a folk tale. If it really is something supernatural, it could be a relapsing recurring thing._

"What kinda stories?"

Chloe smirked and Dawn thought she saw an enthusiastic glint bordering on mania in her new friend's eye.

"Well, the stories are kinda everywhere. If you hear people tell it, it's either the ghost of a kid who died in the meteor shower, or some kind of native land spirit that tramples crops because it's angry about the Luthorcorp plant, or it's a fire breathing demonwith a horse's head a man's torso and bird legs."

Dawn's eyes widened. "Wha...a horse's...and a bird…"

 _Oh boy._ If this did turn out to be a real demon and not some tall tale, Dawn was not looking forward to the research she would need to do to separate fact from fiction.

"That's pretty crazy, Chloe. I mean, there must be like some common points."

Chloe's grin stretched even wider. "If we're both still single come prom, you're taking me. There are some common points. Those who call it the Ghost call it that because of the way it disappears in the blink of an eye. They claim to see a shape in the distance, then suddenly it's gone.

"It gets the name Dust Storm Devil because people say they'll see sudden dust clouds kicked up in a long trail on the horizon as if something was running across the prairies crazy fast. Some even say they see a person-shaped silhouette at the head of the dust cloud.

"Those that say it's a native spirit say they sometimes see the cornfields parting from a distance as if a strong quick wind was moving through them in a way that's totally unnatural."

Dawn frowned. "Hm, that's interesting for sure, but-"

"-ladies, how goes the lunch?"

Dawn looked up and smiled as Pete and Clark joined them.

"I was just telling Dawn about our local Bigfoot."

Pete quirked an eyebrow. He turned to Clark with a strange expression Dawn couldn't quite read.

Clark just shrugged and dug into the mashed potatoes on his tray.

Pete looked back at Dawn and studied her like he was trying to judge if she was worthy of some great secret.

"Do you know something, Pete? Oh my god you totally do." Dawn leaned forward and actually batted her eyelashes a little. "Will you tell me, pwease?"

Pete smirked, then he leaned in closer and his voice got lower. "You mean the _Perro Rojo_?"

Dawn blinked. "The what?"

"About a year ago Adriano Domingo and his brother snuck out at night to go dive into the quarry lake. The story goes the moon was bright that night, but a sudden storm rolled in and clouds blotted out the moonlight. The Domingo brothers kept daring each other to jump into the darkness.

"Eventually, Adriano's brother jumped in. He went down and down, Adriano heard the splash, then...silence. He called out to his brother again and again, but his brother didn't answer.

"Fearing the worst, Adriano ran down to the lake, and what he saw there haunts him to this very day."

Dawn leaned in closer, eyes wide. "What did he see?"

Pete's looked to one side, then to the other. He looked back at Dawn. "What Adriano saw, crouched over his brother's unconscious body, was an enormous, black, hound! With a body made of shadows, and eyes that glowed bright red in the darkness like blazing coals.

"Adriano knew then what it was. It was a Hellhound that had come to snatch his brother's soul away! Luckily, Adriano quickly cried out ' _Madre de Dios!'_ and the thing vanished into the night in an instant."

Pete leaned back and shrugged. "That's the story he tells anyway."

Dawn felt a chill roll up her spine. Buffy had told Dawn about the Hellhounds Buffy herself had faced. Dawn had nightmares for a week after. "Wait...so what happened to his brother?"

"Apparently in the dark he misjudged his jump and hit his head on something on the way down and conked out. It was pretty nasty. He had to get mad stitches."

Dawn bit her lower lip. "Hold on...so, if the brother fell unconscious into the water...wouldn't he have died if the... _Perro Rojo_ or whatever hadn't dragged him out?"

Chloe smirked and jumped back in. "Well that's one of the interesting things. We were talking about common points earlier? Well here they are. Almost all the stories agree that whatever it is, it moves really, _really_ fast. No one agrees on what it looks like but _most_ stories say it has a human or at least humanoid shape. I know Sarah McAnally's grandmother says it's a faerie and leaves a bowl of cream outside her door for it every morning. Mr. Schroeder uses it like a boogeyman, he told his kids it's the _Erlkonig_ and if they're not home by dark it'll come and drag them to Hell-"

"- that's a seriously whacked thing to tell a child."

Chloe shrugged. "Some people even think it's an alien that came down in the meteor shower and has been living here secretly all this time."

Clark laughed. It was his first contribution to the conversation.

Chloe turned to glare at him.

"What? C'mon, Chloe. That one was just funny."

Chloe turned back to Dawn. "You'll have to forgive Clark. He's our resident Agent Scully."

"First of all, who wouldn't want to be Scully? She's the best-"

"-Clark, you can't pretend weird things aren't happening after all you've seen-"

"- second, just because weird things sometimes happen doesn't mean the explanation is _always_ weird. Someone's gotta keep us honest or next thing we're all on the gas and no one's on the brakes. I just like to make sure we consider all the angles."

"Whatever, Clark. We already _know_ what you think about the ghost-"

"-that it's all malarkey, possibly even hogwash-"

"-fine. Let's see what more sensible heads have to say." Chloe turned slightly and waved.

Dawn saw her catch the attention of a slender girl with straight dark hair and a narrow, elven face. The girl smiled at them and walked over with a tray of her own and sat next to Chloe.

"Hey guys." The girl and Clark exchanged an awkward smile and quickly broke eye contact. She reached a hand out to Dawn. "Hey, you must be Dawn Summers."

Dawn shook it with a smile of her own. "Which must make you Lana Lang. The one member of this little crew I haven't met yet."

"That's me. Have they been talking about me behind my back?"

"Of course, they've told me all about your secret deviousness and general scandal-ry."

Lana gasped and let her mouth hang open. "The fools! Only one recourse now. Everybody here must be silenced."

Dawn snorted and spooned some sour apple jello into her mouth. From her peripheral she noticed Clark had been gazing at Lana pretty much the whole time, but whenever Lana would turn towards him he would turn away.

 _Interesting._

Dawn and Lana did the intro thing and then Dawn let her presence fade and watched the four old friends discuss this and that. She made some notes. Of the four, Clark and Lana were definitely the more reserved. Chloe and Pete did most of the talking and led the conversations. Dawn was also pretty sure there was some weird triangle action with Lana,Chloe, and Clark, and that also maybe Pete was involved somehow.

 _Great,_ Dawn thought, _more drama for this mama._

Lana seemed nice, if a little self-involved. She had a tendency to steer conversations toward how they related to her own problems.

Pete was the jokester, always quick and able to read the flow of things. He reminded Dawn of Xander.

Chloe was sharp and to the point, always looking for hidden truths, always trying to cut to the heart of them with the subtlety of a bone saw.

Clark...Clark was something strange. Dawn sometimes got the sense that he was deliberately obfuscating a point, finding skillful ways to avoid saying anything while still speaking. He didn't seem to be lying, but Dawn couldn't shake this feeling, like every time he spoke, she was only getting half the story, and the rest was hidden somewhere just outside the frame.

It was a deeply familiar feeling, sitting here on the outside. Watching the laughter of a group of tight knit friends who were right in front of her, but seemed miles away.

Clark looked up at her at Dawn froze. Just for a second she thought she saw something in the boy's eye. The glint of insight.

 _He saw something just now, about me. Something in my eyes was exposed and he understood it._

But the shine was gone in an instant, replaced by the usual warmth. Had she imagined it?

Clark grinned at her. "I see you start with your desert."

Dawn's spoon loudly scraped the bottom of her empty plastic jello cup. "Some people say you should save the best for last, but that's silly to me. What if you get struck by lightning or stabbed to death in an alley? You'll have missed out on the best parts of life."

Chloe snorted, but Lana stared at her with wide eyes.

"Unfortunately for you," Clark said, "you've neither been struck by lightning nor stabbed. Now you have to make it through the...I think it's supposed to be meatloaf, and you don't even have your jello to look forward too."

"You're right, Clark. I _don't_ have my jello to look forward to." Dawn held up a translucent plastic cup filled with green jello, the foil lid firmly sealed over the top. "I have Pete's."

Pete blinked and looked down at his tray. "Hey!"

The table had a laugh at Pete's expense and Pete even let her keep her prize, which she just began eating immediately anyway in disregard of Clark's advice.

"Oh," Chloe said, "that reminds me. We were talking about the ghost."

Dawn noticed Lana become very still.

"As I was saying, Dawn, lots of different stories have it as either helpful or harmful. When Billy Thornsten fell asleep in his fishing cabin with a lit cigarette in his hand and set it on fire, he swears that right before he passed out from smoke inhalation, something shadowy in the shape of a person with glowing red eyes broke through a flaming wall and pulled him out of the cabin. On the other hand, Joe Uelsmann said that he saw a black shape run past his field a few nights before his herd hand an outbreak of mad cow disease."

Dawn crossed her arms in thought. "Hm. Well, what do you think it is? Is it of the good or of the bad?"

Chloe shrugged. "Why not both. I personally think it might actually be an alien. Why should we expect an alien to follow our logic? Maybe it has it's own reasons for sometimes protecting and sometimes destroying."

"I don't even think it exists," Clark said.

"Ditto," Pete added.

Dawn turned to Lana. "What about you?"

Lana gave a tight, thin smile. "Oh...I'm not sure you want to ask me about that...I have some complicated feelings about it."

Dawn sat up, intrigued. "Well, if you're not comfortable...but I think I'd like your opinion if you're feeling share-y."

Lana bit her lip, looked around to make sure no one else was watching. She turned to Chloe. "How much did you tell her...about…"

Chloe shrugged. "She knows, I gave her the scoop on meteor mutants yesterday."

Lana nodded and turned to Dawn.

"I should be dead," Lana said.

The total certainty in her voice sent chills down Dawn's spine.

"I've had so many thing happen to me," Lana said. "Not just attacks, but accidents. Times when I should have died, but...something always happens. I can't explain it, and I can't say anything specifically I've ever _seen_ happen. But there's a rational limit to luck. Something, or someone has been _protecting_ me, I'm sure of it. And not just me."

Lana turned to look at Chloe, who hugged her arms around her stomach and seemed to be remembering something.

"We all have something like that," Lana continued. "The people at this table, probably everyone in the school and in town. A time when something terrible should have happened, but was stopped somehow, in a way that didn't really make any sense. A fire goes out suddenly. A car crash victim wakes up yards from the wreck without a scratch, A collapsing beam suddenly veers off course…"

Dawn glanced at Chloe. The girl met her eyes and shrugged, but it didn't quite manage to come off as nonchalant. "I never really thought about it like that before in those terms...but she's right. I can remember things like that happening to me too."

Lana pulled some of her long hair behind an ear. "I've never seen it, these shapes or these glowing eyes or whatever that people keep talking about. I don't know what it is or anything...all I know is, in Smallville, when people scream for help, help usually comes."

Dawn looked out the giant window at the blue sky. There was grey on the horizon, a dark mass gathering in the distance.

 _Storm's rolling in._

Dawn turned to Pete. "What about you? Have any moments like that?"

Pete stared at her, then looked to Clark for some reason, but Clark was pushing some corn around on his tray. Pete turned back to her. "Maybe."

Dawn turned to Clark. "And you, Clark?"

Clark looked up at her and grinned bashfully. Dawn felt the sudden inappropriate urge to make him whitewash a picket fence.

"Well, I'm just kinda lucky," Clark said, "I'm almost never in any danger."

Not long after, the lunch bell rang, and they all got up and started making their way to classes. Clark walked with Dawn after the others had gone their own ways."

"What Lana said," he started, "proves this thing doesn't exist."

Dawn frowned. "How so?"

Clark didn't look at her, and he walked a bit faster, so she was stuck looking at the back of his head.

"If there really was someone out there protecting people, there wouldn't be so many terrible things happening."

Dawn adjusted her backpack as she followed after Clark. For some reason, she really wanted to see the face he had at that moment.

* * *

Pete followed Clark into his house.

"Mom," Clark said, "I need you to cover for Pete with his parents."

Martha Kent glanced up from leaks she was dicing.

Clark bounded toward the kitchen counter. He reached out for the keys to the truck that lay there, stopped with fingers outstretched nearly touching them.

He turned to her. "You guys don't need the truck today right?

"Why?"

Clark pointed out the window over the kitchen sink.

Martha looked out at the slate sky.

"Storm's here," Clark said. "So that means Supersonic Practice."

Martha frowned. "Well...be careful."

"Always."

Clark snatched up the keys and flew out the door.

Pete ran right behind him and whooped as he rushed around to the passenger side and Clark popped the driver's door open and hopped in.

Clark started the car.

"Wait! Binoculars?"

"Check under the car seat."

Pete bent down and reached under the seat. Sure enough, they were still there.

The two set off, Clark took the opportunity to tell Pete what he'd learned about Dawn's family.

"Wow, so they're like...some secret tribe of Amazons or something?"

"Pretty much."

"That's crazy hot."

"I'm sure I'll see the appeal once they're less of a threat to my life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness."

"Why? They hunt monsters, doesn't that put you guys on the same side?"

"Maybe…my dad said some stuff. These guys, I don't know them. They don't know me. But it's not hard to imagine what kind of wrong conclusion a group of monster hunters might jump to if they ran into an alien living secretly amid humans."

"Well, I guess. What are you going to do then?"

Clark shrugged. "No clue. My dad wants me to steer clear…maybe he's right."

"That might get hard, what with you both chasing after vampires."

Clark turned to look out his window. "Yeah, I guess it could be."

Pete stared at his best friend. He knew that look. "What'cha thinkin', Clark?"

"Nothing."

"Clark."

"We shouldn't stay out too long. This one's gonna be a doozy. I swear I can smell it."

Pete stared at his friend's profile. Clark kept his eyes firmly on the road.

Pete turned away and looked at the black clouds. Times like these were hard, times when he was reminded that the friend he had known almost his whole life had become a far away existence as soon as the truth was revealed.

When the monsters and the maniacs came calling, when disaster struck, where could Pete Ross be? Where everyone else always was, waiting around for Clark Kent to solve the problem.

When it was important, when it really mattered, the life and death stuff, Pete couldn't do anything. No one could, no one but Clark.

But maybe now…

Pete realized what was on his friend's mind.

Pete coughed to clear his throat. "You know...maybe you won't have to do anything."

Pete saw Clark's grip stiffen. "Oh?"

"Yeah. I mean...these guys are like, professional monster hunters, right? Maybe, for once, a problem around here doesn't need to be _your_ problem. Maybe they'll take care of it."

Clark smirked. "Let the adults handle it?"

"These ones aren't like poor Dep. Waeland or the other cops. They're pros, specialists."

"Pete, Pete, Pete, haven't you ever seen a movie? Adults are useless." Clark still smiled, but his fingers tightened on the steering wheel so much Pete was sure he'd bend it out of shape.

Pete let it drop, and they drove way out to the abandoned field they used on the edge of town.

The thunder had already started and the wind had picked up. Just about perfect.

Pete took his place on a tall hill nearby and his friend ran out to the middle of the grassy field, so far out he was just a dot on the horizon until Pete put the binoculars to his eyes.

He watched Clark bend down to a runner's start and snorted. His friend was being theatrical.

Suddenly, Clark was gone from Pete's sight, and Pete heard a sound like a giant car engine misfiring, but would probably be mistaken for thunder by anyone nearby.

Clark became a streak across the horizon, a trail of grass, dirt and vapor spiraling out behind him.

There a moment, going the next, gone in the third.

That sound was why Pete was up on the hill. Too close and the sonic booms could do serious damage to his hearing.

Pete swiveled to look at the post his friend had marked for the turn and almost missed it. Clark shot past it. Pete couldn't quite see, but he could imagine his friend's frantic attempts to stop his own momentum.

Pete's binoculars caught up with Clark just in time for his friend to trip and go skipping across the ground like a stone across a pond. Pete snickered as Clark bounced out of sight.

Still more work to do on turns over the speed of sound. The next two hours were spent like that, with Clark running around through a series of marked posts at different speeds and trying to control the turns and the stops. Pete shuddered to think that if his friend so much as brushed someone at those speeds...splatter paint.

Or even much lower. Really anything over forty miles an hour and Clark would basically kill anyone he touched.

If speed were all there was too it, that would certainly be the case, but his friend's powers were the result of something far stranger. Clark had explained to Pete his theory once, though Pete had only partially understood it.

" _You see,"_ Clark had said, _"it's not running the way you run. You run by pushing yourself off the ground and the counter force of the ground pushing back on you moves you forward. We know that's not what happens to me because the force I'd need to exert on the ground to move as fast as I do would crater the ground with each step. Not to mention I'd go flying through the air like a grasshopper every step I took, instead of running cleanly on the ground the way I do._

" _It must be something else, something not related to the mechanical force of muscles, and I also don't shoot fire or anything out of my butt like a jet. It has to be some kind of force that acts directly on my body and propels me, like a projectile being launched by a magnetic field from a rail gun. That's why I always stay on the ground even when I go over hills, or why I can turn or stop on a dime against my own momentum. This same force is probably responsible for my strength and durability too."_

Apparently it was difficult, Clark had once described it as "trying to move your arms and legs using only your abs", but not impossible for Clark to extend this force to things he touched.

This let him do things like touch and move objects and people at tremendous speeds without just obliterating them, or lifting objects that should have been impossible due to his relative size without them breaking under their own weight.

But again, it was hard, and needed a lot of practice.

Pete winced as Clark accidentally decapitated a practice scarecrow while trying to move it at high speed. Still, he was getting better. At least half the scarecrows had survived this time.

Finally, Clark made his way back and collapsed in front of Pete panting and gasping.

"So," Pete said, crouching over his prone friend, "want me to drive?"

Clark made a noise somewhere between a grunt and a groan, and Pete laughed. He helped his friend up and half carried him to the passenger side of the truck.

Clark got in. "When I get home just drop me on the doorstep. I don't have the energy to make it to my bed."

Pete snorted as he got into the driver's seat and fiddled with the various settings until he was satisfied.

Lighting flashed as they drove to Clark's house.

Clark levered the passenger seat back and closed his eyes, taking several long breaths as Pete drove. Pete thought his friend had fallen asleep until he heard him mutter something.

"Hm? What's that?"

"Is it wrong?" Clark asked.

"What?"

"Is it wrong that I want to? I want to just leave it to someone else."

Pete looked at his friend, hunched forward and small like bullets wouldn't bounce right off his skin.

Pete tried to imagine it, to be responsible for the lives of everyone around him, to know that people would live or die based on his actions and decisions.

"Nah," Pete said. "I don't think it's wrong."

* * *

"This," Buffy said, arms stretched to either side to indicate the whole cemetery, "is basically gonna be your home away from home. I suggest getting real comfortable-ish with graveyards."

Twenty Slayer recruits and Dawn stood in file with rapt attention. Buffy remembered when that kind of attention terrified her. Now? Another day on the job.

"So, here's the deal for the day. Two groups of ten. Slayers vs Vampires. You'll be split into doubles, and I'll be assigning Dawn to a pod randomly to simulate a helpless citizen-"

"-hey!"

"And sometimes a New Watcher."

A peal of thunder rang out and several of the trainees looked up.

Buffy smirked. "What? You think I ever got out of a patrol because of a little rain-athon? Guess again. 'Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night will stop us from killin' monsters', that's us but way snazzier dressers...it's not all bad news though. The five doubles with the best performance tonight will be going on the first field trip to Metropolis."

That got their attention. If only Giles had tried to motivate her with visits to the shopping capital of the western hemisphere she would have become Super Slayer in no time.

"Well then, let's begin."

* * *

The rain poured down. Not in a few slow drops, but all at once in a dark cataract of blackness.

The "Vampire" Katie Baek rolled on the ground. She heard the thud of her opponent's blunt stake right behind her.

She threw her hands back onto the grass and pushed herself to her feet. Her heightened reflexes screamed at her and she cartwheeled aside as he opponent tried to sweep her legs.

She kept flipping away to get some distance. She came up panting, heart hammering, eyes straining to see through the veil of night and rain.

She grunted in frustration and felt hot tears behind her eyes. No, that wasn't her anymore.

She glanced to the side and saw Buffy there, pacing, watching. Before Buffy and the others, Katie had been a withered violet. Too meek to protect herself or her little brother from their mother's wrath.

But now she had power and purpose, Buffy had given it to her and shown her how to use it. When she was strong as Buffy was, she would go back and rescue her brother.

She couldn't let Buffy down here. She couldn't let her brother down. She couldn't let herself down.

A flash of lightning illuminated the two Slayers that moved to flank her. Her partner was grumbling to one side, having already been eliminated. Katie risked a quick look over her shoulder. The iron fence marking the cemetery's border was only ten yards away. She remembered something Buffy had said.

" _You're not competing, and a vamp isn't gonna bow or have honor or anything. In the real world, fights get dirty fast. Get there first. Win, whatever it takes._

Whatever it takes.

Thunder clapped.

Katie turned and ran. Her new speed devoured the distance in a moment and Katie got that soaring feeling she always got. Such incredible power.

She couldn't sense the pursuit, her taking off had startled her opponents apparently, Katie wished she'd planned that but it was luck. She specifically noted Buffy not saying anything about having to stay in the area, though no one else had tried to run.

One leap took her clean over the fence. She rolled into her landing as she heard Buffy snapping at the other two.

"Fair? You think vamps fight fair? It's innocent blood on your hands if you let her escape."

Katie sprinted across the field, wind and rain blowing in her face. Nothing but open grassland here. She couldn't run forever.

Another flash of lightning.

There, to the side she saw one of the town's many corn fields. Katie rushed for it, rand into it.

 _Ah!_

Something cut her. Many somethings.

The corn stalks sliced every part of her exposed flesh with almost hungry efficiency.

 _Damn! Who knew corn stalks had such sharp leaves? It's like getting a thousand paper cuts._

Katie charged on. Let her pursuers follower her into this forest of green knives. She dared them.

She shot through more corn stalks when a sudden shadow materialized in front of her. Another person

 _Crap!_

She tried to stop _._ Too late. Too much momentum. She slammed into them.

They both went rolling.

"Gah!" Katie cried out as she rolled off crushed corn stalks. Her thousand little wounds all burned at once. Katie hissed.

Corn fields. Never again.

"Hey," Katie called to the prone figure. "Hey you okay?"

She heard a masculine groan. "Ow."

"Sorry! Ohmigosh I'm so sorry! I was just...running, and I...are you okay?"

In the darkness she could see the man sit up. "Yeah, I'm alright. You really shouldn't be running at night you know, especially through corn fields."

Katie sighed in relief and then chuckled. "Yeah, you're right. My bad."

Katie started to get up but the sparring and the intense flight had drained her

 _Maybe I'll just sit like this for a few minutes. With a Norm here the match is off. I wonder if I won this one._

She heard the rustle of stalks and looked up to see the shadow had gotten on his hands and knees and crawled closer to her.

The man took a deep breath and sighed in rapture. "Can you smell that?"

Katie felt a strange crawling on her skin. She started to get up.

"You're bleeding."

Lightning flashed.

Katie saw his face.

She died screaming.

Her blood glistened on the red blades of the corn stalks. The rain washed it down into the mud where it began to seep into the earth, there to feed the fields.


End file.
